Polish farmers block a highway in Ryki, February 20, 2024 (AFP/Sergei GAPON)
Polish farmers opened two Ukrainian freight wagons at the border on Tuesday and dumped grain on the tracks, police said, angering Kiev.
Farmers are blocking Ukrainian trucks from entering Poland to protest what they consider “unfair competition”, creating tensions between the two neighbors.
Polish farmers launched this new protest movement by blocking around a hundred roads and border crossing points, in particular to denounce Ukrainian agri-food imports deemed “uncontrolled” and to demand a review of European rules.
These actions are part of a broad movement of protests by farmers across the European continent against the importation of cheaper products.
“A group of farmers entered the railway line which runs alongside the blocked road and remained (…) for a few minutes. There was no use of force. We observed the spilling of a small quantity of grain on the tracks,” the Przemysl police spokesperson told AFP.
Poland strongly supports Ukraine in its fight against the Russian invasion, but protests by disgruntled Polish farmers have angered Ukrainian authorities.
Trucks displaying Ukrainian messages and flags during a demonstration against the border blockade by Polish farmers at the Rava-Ruska crossing point, February 20, 2024 (AFP/YURIY DYACHYSHYN)
Reacting to the incident in Medyka (a Polish town on the border with Ukraine), Ukrainian Agriculture Minister Mykola Solsky said that Kiev “strongly condemns such forms of protest”, adding that the freight car was transporting corn to Germany.
“Hindering Ukraine’s trade with other countries around the world is unacceptable and goes against common Ukrainian-Polish goals,” Solsky said in a statement.
Ukraine’s agricultural sector has been upended by the Russian invasion, with many export sites across the Black Sea blocked and farmland rendered unusable by the war.
Ukrainian Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov called the grain incident a “political provocation aimed at dividing our nations.”
Trucks displaying Ukrainian messages and flags during a demonstration against the border blockade by Polish farmers at the Rava-Ruska crossing point, February 20, 2024 (AFP/YURIY DYACHYSHYN)
“For two years, Ukrainian farmers have been harvesting grain wearing bulletproof vests, under rocket fire and the threat of mines,” Mr. Kubrakov said on X (formerly Twitter), adding that global food security ” depends on Ukrainian grain.
On Tuesday, the Ukrainian Railways group also denounced this action, declaring itself, in a press release, “scandalized by the actions of Polish demonstrators”, calling for an “end to illegal actions”.
The day before, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that the blockade of the Polish border by Polish truckers and farmers demonstrated the “erosion of solidarity” towards his country.
— “Total failure” —
Dozens of tractors flocked to Ryki, 100 kilometers southeast of Warsaw, from where they set off to block the S17 expressway leading to the city of Lublin and further towards the border with Ukraine.
Polish farmers block a highway in Ryki, February 20, 2024 (AFP/Sergei GAPON)
Arriving on the S17, they joined hundreds of other farmers and their tractors, noted AFP journalists.
Farmers displayed white and red Polish flags on their vehicles, with signs reading: “Stop the uncontrolled influx of Ukrainian goods” or “agriculture is slowly dying”.
“I am here so that we abandon the restrictions introduced by the European Union on fallowing, and the Green Deal, and above all so that these Ukrainian products stop flowing in,” Tomasz Golak, owner, told AFP. of around fifteen hectares housing an animal farm and cereal fields.
“This year, wheat is selling for half the price of last year,” he insists.
According to another farmer, Michal Magnuszewski, this is a “total failure” of European policies.
A banner “Stop the uncontrolled supply of goods from Ukraine” hung on a semi-trailer during the blockade by Polish farmers of the highway linking Warsaw to Lublin, near Ryki, on February 20, 2024 (AFP/ Sergei GAPON)
“How can we open the border to something that is not controlled in any way? When we transport something abroad we go through hundreds of different controls whereas there, nothing at all, it arrives here and it’s is everything,” he complains.
Road traffic with Poland has been crucial since the start of this war to allow Ukrainian companies to continue to export. But this situation has angered Polish farmers and transport companies, who complain about Ukrainian tariffs, with which they cannot compete.
© 2024 AFP
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