On Saturday, Poland and Hungary said they were banning imports of Ukrainian agricultural products until June 30, citing the need to protect domestic farmers from the uncontrolled influx of cheap grain from Ukraine. Bulgaria is also mulling such plans, the country's agriculture minister Yavor Gechev said.
"There will be difficult negotiations in the coming months, caused by the active export of our products to the EU countries. As for Poland, the talks start tomorrow. We will meet tomorrow in Warsaw and we will inform everyone. We believe that the first step should be the opening of transit," Solskyi told a telethon.
The minister added that separate rounds of negotiations with Romania and Slovakia are set to be held on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively.
Earlier on Sunday, Ukraine's agriculture ministry said that Solskyi held an online meeting with his Hungarian counterpart, Istvan Nagy, to discuss the export of Ukrainian agricultural products to the country.
"Solskyi emphasized the need to continue negotiations to reach agreements on the export of Ukrainian agricultural products and the inadmissibility of unilateral decisions," the statement read.
Nagy, in turn, gave his assurances that Hungary will continue transiting agricultural products coming from Ukraine.
In late March, prime ministers of Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia published a joint open letter to President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, calling for measures to counteract the negative effects of the increased Ukrainian grain imports. Since early February, several Polish farmer organizations have been campaigning against the imported Ukrainian grain, primarily of poor quality, which was flooding the Polish market and damaging local production.