by Radovan and Stoklasa
HOLIC, Slovakia (Reuters) – Czech, Slovak and Polish farmers blocked border crossings between the Czech Republic and Slovakia on Thursday to protest what they see as too much “bureaucracy” and against the new European standards.
Farmers notably disrupted road traffic for more than an hour at the Hogonin-Holic border crossing, in the south of the Czech Republic, with around a hundred tractors.
The demonstrators, including Hungarian farmers who came by bus, waved national flags and signs reading: “Stop bureaucracy” and “Stop Ukrainian grain.”
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Czech and Polish farmers also partially blocked a checkpoint in the north of the Czech Republic using dozens of tractors, according to the Czech news agency CTK.
Some 3,000 tractors have been deployed in the Czech Republic, announced the Czech Agricultural Chamber, adding that German, Hungarian, Polish, Lithuanian and Latvian farmers have joined the movement.
“The fact that farmers are protesting today across the European Union shows that it is essential to redefine the terms of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP),” the Agricultural Chamber said in a joint statement. with other agricultural organizations.
Central European farmers are demonstrating against competition deemed “unfair” from their Ukrainian counterparts, who have benefited from reduced European customs duties on food exports since 2022.
Kyiv denounced Wednesday a “political provocation” after Polish farmers blocked the Ukrainian border and dumped Ukrainian grain on railway tracks.
(Reporting by Radovan Stoklasa and Jason Hovet; French version Zhifan Liu, editing by Sophie Louet)
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