WARSAW (Reuters) – Polish farmers demonstrated on the border with Lithuania on Friday, denouncing imports of Ukrainian grain via the Baltic country, which Vilnius denies.
Small groups of demonstrators, who waved Polish flags and banners, joined customs officers responsible for checking trucks crossing the border at the Budzisko crossing point, but did not attempt to block the road.
For several weeks, farmers across Europe have been protesting against the constraints imposed by European regulations to combat climate change. They also denounce the increase in costs and what they present as unfair competition from non-European countries, in particular Ukraine.
The EU scrapped quotas and tariffs on imports from Ukraine after Russia’s 2022 invasion, angering farmers in neighboring Poland, Hungary and Slovakia , who believe that these measures have the effect of lowering their prices.
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Polish farmers claim that some shipments of Ukrainian grain sent to Lithuania are then re-exported to other countries under the label of European grain.
“Today’s protest aims to draw attention to the uncontrolled influx of grain into the European market from Ukraine and Russia,” protest organizer Karol Pieczynski told Reuters. .
“They arrive in Lithuania and Latvia, the documents are changed and these products are then distributed throughout Europe as European products, which means they meet all the standards, without complying with health standards.”
Lithuanian officials have refuted the accusations.
“I think the people who organize such protests are wrong, and this leads us to escalation and problems, logistical problems, between European countries, which is distressing,” said Vilmantas Vitkauskas, the head of the National Crisis Management Center of Lithuania.
It would not make commercial sense to transport Ukrainian grain to Lithuania and then re-export it to other countries, he added.
(Reporting Janis Laizans and Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk; French version Alban Kacher, editing by Kate Entringer)
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