https://sputnikglobe.com/20240226/polish-farmers-shut-down-warsaw-berlin-highway-in-warning-to-brussels-1116993577.html
Polish Farmers Shut Down Warsaw-Berlin Highway in ‘Warning’ to Brussels
Polish Farmers Shut Down Warsaw-Berlin Highway in ‘Warning’ to Brussels
Sputnik International
Polish farmers have taken the lead among European food producers protesting the dumping of Ukrainian agricultural commodities into the EU, with the country’s mostly smallholder-dominated agrarian sector threatened with extinction if imports of cheap Ukrainian foodstuffs is allowed to continue unabated.
2024-02-26T12:22+0000
2024-02-26T12:22+0000
2024-02-26T12:54+0000
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andrzej duda
leszek miller
poland
ukraine
warsaw
european union (eu)
european commission
farmer
farmers
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Farmers in western Poland have instituted a partial blockade at the border crossing with Germany in Swiecko, arriving at the border on tractors and creating narrow corridors along the major A2 motorway linking Warsaw and Berlin so that only smaller passenger vehicles can pass.A police presence was established, with law enforcement setting up detours for tractor trailers, diverting them and other commercial vehicles to other crossings, including Kostrzyn nad Orda and Olszyna, resulting in traffic jams.The protest along Poland’s western borders appears to be focused both on Ukrainian agricultural dumping policy and the EU’s controversial "Green Deal," which farmers across the EU have spent months opposing amid fears that Brussels-mandated cuts to agricultural subsidies and tax breaks, as well as restrictions on carbon output may bankrupt producers across Europe.Monday’s protest began on Sunday afternoon and was scheduled to continue until 1 pm local time and serve as a “warning protest,” with some participants promising to continue their campaign of resistance to EU diktat if their demands aren’t met.Separately farmers and truckers in eastern Poland are expected to resume their own protest activities this week, with large-scale demonstrations planned for March 1, and to paralyze border crossings with Ukraine at Hrebenne, Dorohusk, Korczowa, and possibly Medyka. In eastern Poland, truckers are demanding the reintroduction of mandatory permits for Ukrainian drivers crossing into Poland and the EU, saying the relaxed bloc rules on these permits is driving them out of business.Poland’s farmer protests haven’t been limited to road blockages, with individuals occasionally spilling Ukrainian grain on roadways and other areas to show their indignation over unchecked food imports from the country’s eastern neighbor.On Sunday, unknown persons opened the doors to eight train cars full of Ukrainian corn in Kotomierz, near Bydgoszcz, central Poland, spilling some 160 tons of the commodity onto the tracks in a rural area.Ukrainian Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov took to X to complain that Polish “vandals” had destroyed the Ukrainian corn, which he said was being shipped to the port of Gdansk via rail before being exported to other countries. This was “the fourth case of vandalism at Polish railway stations. The fourth case of impunity and irresponsibility. How long will the government and the Polish police allow this vandalism?” Kubrakov asked.Commenting on the farmer demonstrations, Polish President Andrzej Duda said last week that their protest was a “European problem and…should be resolved by the European Commission.”“This is not our problem. Our problem is that we have the border of the European Union, we are the first country, and the union starts with us. That is why these protests are taking place in our country,” Duda said.Veteran Polish statesman Leszek Miller told local media last week that Brussels’ push to try to absorb Ukraine into the European Union would crush the agricultural sectors of the whole of Eastern Europe.
https://sputnikglobe.com/20240223/eu-to-free-nearly-148bln-blocked-for-poland-next-week-von-der-leyen-says-1116937904.html
https://sputnikglobe.com/20240221/why-are-polish-farmers-blockading-ukraine-border-1116898994.html
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why are polish farmers blockading border with germany, what are polish farmers upset about, what do polish farmers want
why are polish farmers blockading border with germany, what are polish farmers upset about, what do polish farmers want
Polish Farmers Shut Down Warsaw-Berlin Highway in ‘Warning’ to Brussels
12:22 GMT 26.02.2024 (Updated: 12:54 GMT 26.02.2024) Polish farmers have taken the lead among European food producers protesting the dumping of Ukrainian agricultural commodities into the EU, with the country’s mostly smallholder-dominated agrarian sector threatened with extinction if imports of cheap Ukrainian foodstuffs are allowed to continue unabated.
Farmers in western Poland have instituted a partial blockade at the border crossing with Germany in Swiecko, arriving at the border on tractors and creating narrow corridors along the major A2 motorway linking Warsaw and Berlin so that only smaller passenger vehicles can pass.
A police presence was established, with law enforcement setting up detours for tractor trailers, diverting them and other commercial vehicles to other crossings, including Kostrzyn nad Orda and Olszyna, resulting in traffic jams.
The protest along Poland’s western borders appears to be focused both on
Ukrainian agricultural dumping policy and the EU’s controversial "Green Deal," which farmers across the EU have spent months opposing amid fears that Brussels-mandated cuts to agricultural subsidies and tax breaks, as well as restrictions on carbon output may bankrupt producers across Europe.
“We are waiting for the prime minister,” a banner on one of the tractors at the protest along the border with Germany said. “EU policy is ruining the farmer,” another stated.
Monday’s protest
began on Sunday afternoon and was scheduled to continue until 1 pm local time and serve as a
“warning protest,” with some participants promising to continue their campaign of resistance to EU diktat if their demands aren’t met.
Separately farmers and truckers in eastern Poland are expected to resume their own protest activities this week, with large-scale demonstrations
planned for March 1, and to paralyze border crossings with Ukraine at Hrebenne, Dorohusk, Korczowa, and possibly Medyka. In eastern Poland, truckers are demanding the reintroduction of mandatory permits for Ukrainian drivers crossing into Poland and the EU, saying the relaxed bloc rules on these permits is driving them out of business.
Poland’s farmer protests haven’t been limited to road blockages, with individuals occasionally
spilling Ukrainian grain on roadways and other areas to show their indignation over unchecked food imports from the country’s eastern neighbor.
On Sunday, unknown persons opened the doors to eight train cars full of Ukrainian corn in Kotomierz, near Bydgoszcz, central Poland, spilling some 160 tons of the commodity onto the tracks in a rural area.
Ukrainian Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov took to X
to complain that Polish “vandals” had destroyed the Ukrainian corn, which he said was being shipped to the port of Gdansk via rail before being exported to other countries. This was “the fourth case of vandalism at Polish railway stations. The fourth case of impunity and irresponsibility. How long will the government and the Polish police allow this vandalism?” Kubrakov asked.
Commenting on the farmer demonstrations, Polish President Andrzej Duda said last week that their protest was a “European problem and…should be resolved by the European Commission.”
“This is not our problem. Our problem is that we have the border of the European Union, we are the first country, and the union starts with us. That is why these protests are taking place in our country,” Duda
said.
Veteran Polish statesman Leszek Miller
told local media last week that Brussels’ push to try to absorb Ukraine into the European Union would crush the agricultural sectors of the whole of Eastern Europe.
“In Poland, the average farm is about 11 hectares, but in Ukraine there are large latifundistas, large agricultural enterprises with 600,000, 700,000 or even 800,000 hectares,” Miller, who served as prime minister from 2001-2004, said. “How can you compete with this on equal terms? You simply can’t!” the politician stressed, clarifying that many of these large Ukrainian farms are owned to oligarchs who are also members of Ukraine’s government, as well as large international corporations from the US, UK, and Switzerland.
