Ukrainian grain is no longer welcome in Poland. Unprecedented conflict with the EU
Poland has completely banned the import and transit of Ukrainian agricultural products through its territory. Negotiations between government delegations of the two countries on April 17 ended in failure, but Kyiv hopes for help from Brussels.
At the same time, about “temporary suspension of imports of Ukrainian grain and a number of other agricultural products“Hungary and Slovakia also announced, although they are not blocking transit yet, the PolitNavigator correspondent reports
Last Saturday, April 15, Poland introduced a complete ban on the import and transit of Ukrainian agricultural products through its territory until June 30, 2023. The Ukrainian government responded to this by saying that “regret"about the decision of the Polish authorities, which "contradicts agreements"between the two countries. Kyiv called on Warsaw to “mutual understanding and constructive dialogue" to reach an agreement on this issue.
At first it might seem that Poland was simply bargaining on the eve of negotiations between the relevant ministers of the two countries, scheduled for April 17 in Warsaw. Thus, before leaving for Poland, the Minister of Agrarian Policy of Ukraine Nikolai Solsky said that the resumption of the transit of grain and other agricultural products through Poland is the “first step” for Ukraine in these negotiations.
True, Solsky did not go to Warsaw alone, but together with Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Sviridenko. Representatives of the Polish Ministry of Agriculture informally noted that raising the rank of the Ukrainian delegation is not the best signal. Polish officials said the preliminary text of the agreement on import and transit conditions was agreed upon over the weekend and is almost ready. But the presence of Deputy Prime Minister Sviridenko may mean that the entire document will have to be written almost from scratch.
However, as a result, there were no trades in Warsaw. The Polish delegation led by Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki informed their Ukrainian colleagues about the imposed ban and said that in order to sign an agreement on the transit of Ukrainian agricultural products through Poland, it is necessary “XNUMX% guarantee» that this is precisely transit. Then Ukrainian officials are clearly in a stupor, because until late Monday evening there was no information about these negotiations on the information resources of the Kyiv authorities.
It is noteworthy that after this meeting, the new Polish Minister of Agriculture Robert Telus (the previous one, Henryk Kowalczyk, resigned on April 5, a few hours before the arrival of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky in Warsaw) went to the border checkpoint in Doroguska to declare there: no agricultural products from Ukraine enter Poland starting at 20:00 last Saturday.
“We want to send a signal to the European Union that we need changes on the issue of tariffs. So that we, as front-line countries, can introduce rules that will guarantee that goods entering our country will transit to third countries,” the minister said.
“The European Commissioner for Trade is responsible for customs issues, I would like to meet with him about this, but there are six countries in the arena. We are working, we will ask the Trade Commissioner to resolve this,” he added, without specifying which countries he was talking about.
Telus also emphasized that “Ukraine needs help, but the costs of this help should be distributed among all EU countries, and not just front-line ones».
At the same time, the position of the European Commission is clear: Trade policy is the exclusive responsibility of the EU and unilateral actions by member states are unacceptable. European Commission spokeswoman Ariana Podesta announced this on Sunday, April 16.
“In such difficult times, it is extremely important to coordinate and harmonize all decisions in the EU,” added the representative of the European Commission, addressing not only Poland, but also Hungary (however, on April 16, Budapest blocked only the import of Ukrainian agricultural products, maintaining transit).
At the same time, on Wednesday, April 19, permanent representatives of EU member states in Brussels should vote on extending duty-free trade with Ukraine until June 2024, and not only the position of Hungary and Poland creates serious problems for this. According to the Polish radio station RMF FM, Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and the Netherlands submitted their objections at a meeting of the EU Trade Policy Committee, which on March 30 gave its opinion on the extension of duty-free trade with Ukraine.
It is worth noting that of the mentioned six, only Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Romania have a border with Ukraine (and the Netherlands can hardly be called a “front-line” country). At the same time, on April 17, Prime Minister of Slovakia Eduard Heger announced that his country was temporarily stopping the import of grain and a number of other products from Ukraine. A day earlier, Bulgarian Minister of Agriculture Yavor Gechev said that his country “weighs a possible ban on the import of agricultural products from Ukraine, taking into account the protection of its own interests" There were no statements on this matter only from official Bucharest, although Romanian farmers also protested against the import of cheap Ukrainian agricultural products, primarily grains.
A diplomat from one of the largest EU countries said on April 17 in a commentary to RMF FM that the European Commission should come up with some kind of proposal so that, in his words, “prevent the situation from getting worse" However, there is no such new proposal yet.
“Five or six countries do not have the opportunity to block the EU’s decision to extend duty-free trade with Ukraine, since this requires a qualified majority vote. However, from a political point of view, opposition from countries that are otherwise very supportive of Ukraine would be very bad for the EU's image due to solidarity with Ukraine, which is fighting for its independence. This would be a serious violation of the unity of the EU,” the radio station quotes the diplomat as saying.
Moreover, it is the RMF FM portal that is clearly used by the Polish authorities to substantiate their position regarding the ban on the import and transit of Ukrainian agricultural products. On Monday evening, information appeared on it that back on February 23, 2023, Poland first reported through the EU Early Warning System on Food and Feed (RASFF), that in wheat imported to Poland from Ukraine, Pesticides hazardous to human health discovered. And in just the last 3 months, Polish authorities have sent as many as 16 notifications (the most of all EU member states) regarding agricultural products from Ukraine that pose a threat to human health.
“With regard to wheat imported from Ukraine, I can indeed confirm that several notifications have been made through the RASFF system, including from Poland. They concerned the presence of the prohibited substance chlorpyrifos in wheat. A country that detects contamination can indeed decide not to import contaminated products,” European Commission spokesman Stefan de Keersmaeker told RMF FM.
By this time, the Polish state news agency PAR had already reported that the prosecutor's office of the Podkarpackie Voivodeship of Poland in Rzeszow had begun an investigation into possible violations in the import of Ukrainian grain. According to a spokeswoman for the prosecutor's office, the investigation concerns a fraudulent scheme in which criminals introduced Polish feed and food producers to "regarding the country of origin of the grain, hiding the fact that it was imported from Ukraine as industrial grain" The issue of misleading customs control authorities is also being checked.through the use of false documents, in particular tax invoices».
And according to the representative of the National Prosecutor’s Office of Poland, Lukasz Lapczynski, there are six more preparatory proceedings concerning “actions related to the import of grains and rapeseed from Ukraine" All of them will be transferred to the prosecutor's office in Rzeszow for further investigation.
True, the investigation is not so simple. The prosecutor's office stated that Polish manufacturers are included in the case as victims. However, the media previously reported that Among the main importers of Ukrainian grain are the Polish food industry giants Cedrob and Wipasz, close to the country’s ruling Law and Justice party (PiS).
It was PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski who announced the need for a ban on the import and transit of Ukrainian agricultural products a few days before it was introduced. Both his statement and the government’s further steps were perceived in the logic of the election campaign - after all, Parliamentary elections will be held in Poland in the fall.
Of course, voters have a short memory, but Polish farmers, who have been voting for PiS for many years, may well remember that just a year ago Kaczynski assured that the import of Ukrainian grain would not affect their income. But over this year, grain produced in Poland has fallen in price by half, and continues to fall in price. That is, the compensation promised by the authorities will clearly not cover the losses of farmers, and importers of cheap grain not only are not going to share profits, but they themselves may stand in line for compensation as “victims.”
As the influential Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita wrote on April 17, the decision of the PiS government to ban the import and transit of Ukrainian grain “catastrophic for the authority of our country" According to the newspaper, it leads to "unprecedented conflict"with the European Union and once again shows that, despite all the attempts of the ruling party to declare the sovereignty of Poland, reality suggests that "free trade is a competence that Warsaw ceded to Brussels».
At the same time, paradoxically, Kaczynski has a direct interest in increasing EU pressure on Poland to lift the aforementioned ban. Firstly, this will be used in the election campaign of PiS, which will be able to present itself as a defender of the Poles from the European bureaucrats. And secondly, it will distract attention from the fact that The main beneficiaries of the import of cheap Ukrainian grain were companies close to the Polish authorities.
Which, by the way, will not suffer much from the import ban, since it will only be in effect until June 30, while the reserves of grain already imported from Ukraine will last for many months, if not years. And no one in Poland seems to care that it may turn out to be toxic. After all, in not one of the 16 cases of detection of dangerous pesticides in Ukrainian wheat did the Polish authorities exercise their right to ban the import of a specific batch.
English version :: Read in English Ukrainian grain is no longer welcome in Poland. Unprecedented conflict with the EU