Ukraine’s trade representative slams Poland over food import row

Kyiv won’t be intimidated by Poland’s “attempts to stigmatise” their food production amid tensions at the border and further blockades planned by Polish farmers, Ukraine’s trade representative Taras Kachka said on Wednesday (14 February).

“Ukrainian products do not cause any damage to (…) EU farmers,” Kachka told a group of reporters in Brussels, adding that “some countries” were trying to “discredit” Kyiv’s food products. 

“We are not scared,” Kachka said when asked about Warsaw’s intention. 

His comments come after Poland’s deputy agriculture minister, Michal Kolodziejczak, told state news agency PAP on Monday that his government would carry out quality checks on all grain coming from Ukraine. 

On the same day, the Polish Agriculture Minister Czeslaw Siekierski told TVP Info that the European Commission had “made a mistake by opening the European market too much”. 

The atmosphere on the streets is also tense, as Polish farmers continue to block several border crossings with Ukraine. 

Similar actions have taken place in other neighbouring countries, and a joint protest at the Slovak-Polish-Czech border is planned for 22 February. 

Eastern European farmers to jointly protest against EU agricultural policy

Representatives of agricultural organisations from Central and Eastern European countries met in Poland on Tuesday to agree on the organisation of joint protests against EU agricultural policy, which is set to take place on 22 February.

The European Commission announced on 31 January that it will extend Autonomous Trade Measures (ATMs) for another year, until June 2025.

In view of the significant increase in imports of certain foods, the EU executive introduced “safeguard measures”, including an “emergency brake” in case poultry, eggs and sugar influx from Kyiv go beyond the average import volumes in 2022 and 2023. 

However, MEPs from the main political groups in the European Parliament are arguing that the Commission is not doing enough to protect European farmers. 

On Monday, MEP Herbert Dorfmann, EPP coordinator at the European Parliament’s agriculture committee, accused the EU executive of “playing down things” and called for it to admit “that it was a mistake to open up the market to Ukraine without conditions”, using a similar wording of Siekierski.

“You said that measures would apply if market distortions were there, but distortions have been there for a long time, and they’re getting worse,” he told European Commission Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis during an exchange of views in an agriculture committee meeting. 

The socialist coordinator of the agriculture committee, Clara Aguilera, also questioned whether “total liberalisation” with Ukraine was “a good idea”. 

Controversial threshold

The Commission based the threshold for poultry, eggs and sugar imports on the average level for 2022-23, a decision that Kachka questioned. 

“In 2022, our economy was completely destroyed,” he said, adding that such a period should not be relevant for measuring. 

Kachka said the 2023 period was “absolutely reasonable” and expressed his commitment not to exceed such volumes. 

Meanwhile, in the European Parliament committee, Romanian EPP MEP Daniel Buda and French MEP Anne Sander said the threshold should be based on pre-war data.

“We’re talking about 2022 and 2023, when goods entering the European Union were already huge in volume,” Buda told Dombrovskis, “please stop pretending we’re stupid,” he added.

[Edited by Angelo Di Mambro/Alexandra Brzozowski]

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Eastern European farmers to jointly protest against EU agricultural policy

Representatives of agricultural organisations from Central and Eastern European countries met in Poland on Tuesday to agree on the organisation of joint protests against EU agricultural policy, which is set to take place on 22 February.