It is heartbreaking to see thugs scattering Ukrainian grain on the ground under the veil of Polish farmers. Many Poles were ashamed, and many took to social media to express their anger and sadness.
It is even more heartbreaking to see Ukrainians turning against Poles. And this naturally happens at a time when Poles are closing their borders to Ukrainians.
How did we arrive at this? Why are Polish farmers protesting against Ukrainians when 77 percent of Poles support them in the most dire period for Ukraine?
The simple answer is that the complaints of Polish farmers are mostly justified because imports from Ukraine are taking some (but not all) of their income, but if these imports are The market has been flooded and the prices offered are severely damaging Polish producers.
As reported by the Polish Supreme Audit Office (NIK), in 2022 alone, imports from Ukraine to Poland will represent a significant increase.
- Wheat increased by 16,771 percent – from 3,100 tonnes in 2021 to 523,000 tonnes in 2022
- Corn increased by 29,803 percent – from 6,200 tonnes in 2021 to 1.8 million tonnes in 2022
- Rapeseed production will increase by 670 percent from 86,000 tons in 2021 to 6.6 million tons in 2022.
Between January 1, 2022 and April 30, 2023, 541 companies imported a total of 4.3 million tons of grains and oil plants worth PLN6.2 billion ($1.5 billion), leading to lower prices. and caused damage to farmers in the process.
NIK also believed that the Polish government had not developed systematic solutions to maintain stability in the agricultural market, including mechanisms to ensure the functioning of Polish agricultural producers.
The report was revealed in November 2023, and the data was shocking even though Polish media had been reporting on the issue for months.
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Tensions between Warsaw and Kiev have escalated in recent months as disgruntled Polish truck drivers and farmers have blocked border crossings over competition with Ukraine and agricultural imports.
Here’s a timeline of the events that unfolded.
May and June 2022
Low prices for Ukrainian grains have led to their popularity in Poland
Ukraine’s agricultural products were cheaper than local production in Poland, which, as a non-EU member state, does not have to meet EU quality, safety, hygiene and ecological standards and must meet the bloc’s standards and regulations. As a result, Ukrainian producers/exporters were able to offer much lower prices than Polish farmers.
In economics, exporting a product at a lower price than the importing market price in order to occupy a market constitutes “dumping prices” if applied in bad faith.
There was no malicious intent on the Ukrainian side. Rather, there was a dire need to save the national economy, which was dominated by agricultural exports. That is why, after Russia invaded Ukraine, the EU decided to support the Ukrainian economy in the following ways:
- Suspension of tariffs and quotas on imports from Ukraine (initially for one year from June 2022, with possibility of extension)
- It circumvented Russia’s blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, which handled 90% of Ukraine’s agricultural exports before the war, and created the Solidarity Corridor, in which Poland and Romania played key roles.
Everyone understood the need and everyone agreed.
Everything seemed fine until then, Polish farmers began to have problems selling their produce domestically.
April 2023
In Poland, 2023 was an election year. Peasants were the backbone of the then-ruling PiS party, and without their votes the party was doomed to defeat. As Polish farmers increasingly voiced their dissatisfaction, the PiS government decided to take action.
As a result, Poland, along with Hungary and Slovakia, introduced a ban on imports of Ukrainian grains in April 2023.
This appeased the Polish peasantry to some extent. But the Ukrainian government was shaken by Poland’s decision, and contacts between officials took a turn from friendly, as depicted in a photo of Presidents Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Andrei Duda embracing, to permafrost. It became a state.
After several talks between the Polish and Ukrainian governments, this time without any hugs, it was decided that goods exported from Ukraine to other destinations would be allowed to transit through Poland. I did.
Everything seemed fine until then, Reports began to come in that Ukrainian exports that had entered Poland only for transit purposes were not leaving Poland for other destinations as declared..
Opportunistic entrepreneurs in Ukraine and Poland appear to have decided that there is no reason to stop the lucrative trade of buying cheap Ukrainian ingredients and processing them into ready-to-store products. As a result, Polish farmers appear to have been excluded along the way. It is also noteworthy that the decline in prices in the aggregate product market did not lead to a decline in retail prices.
September 2023
The Ukrainian government sought EU help to force Poland to lift the ban, but the European Commission’s attempts to discipline Poland were futile. The growing anger eventually exploded in a very public display of fistfights.
- Duda likened Ukraine’s fight for survival against Russia to the fight of a “drowner” who beats down those who try to help.
- President Zelenskiy accused Poland of indirectly supporting Russia and claimed that “some of our friends in Europe” had “made a thriller from scratch” at the UN General Assembly.
- Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki hissed back at Zelenskiy. “Please never insult Poles again.”
The Polish government then announced that Ukraine no longer had any weapons and needed to rearm its army.
November 2023
Poland’s October elections led to a victory for the opposition, but it was not decisive, and it was only in mid-December that it was able to consolidate its power. Meanwhile, the conflict over imports from Ukraine continues, and new actors appeared on the stage in early November.
This time it was Polish truck drivers who took to the stage with a bang and closed the Poland-Ukraine border, but this time it wasn’t about grain imports.
This time, they said, it was about unfair competition with Ukraine. With the introduction of the electronic queuing system, Ukrainian truck drivers will have an advantage of about 10-12 days, as they will not have to wait at checkpoints when entering or exiting Ukraine, which is not the case for other truck drivers. Some had to, including Polish truck drivers.
Polish truck drivers put forward many more demands than just rectifying the queuing system, but these did not receive much attention as the Polish government was already a lame duck.
Poland’s new government only took office in mid-December. After weeks of negotiations, Polish truck drivers withdrew from the border closure.
But the blockade of truckers would soon be replaced by Polish farmers with tractors.
February 2024
The EU’s decision to extend tariff exemptions for Ukraine has led Polish farmers to believe that the problem will not be resolved and will only get worse.
This led to the February blockade, when Polish peasant sentiments reached a boiling point, sparking grain spills and anti-Ukrainian slogans, probably instigated by active agents of certain countries. It seems that it was identified Through VKontakte.
Shouldn’t Polish farmers be on the Russian border?
According to some Ukrainian agencies, imports from Russia are greater than from Ukraine, but this is not entirely true.
In 2022, Russian grain imports (not directly, but via the EU) amounted to only 6 million kilograms (which should have been zero, but the EU forgot to ban this import), compared to Ukrainian grain imports in the same year. was 3 billion kilograms. This is 500 times larger.
What about the German border?
On February 20, Poland’s deputy minister of agriculture suggested that Polish farmers may be sealing off the wrong border. As it turned out, these shipments were returned by Germany, although the Ukrainians had been following the “transit-only rules” for the past month. Customs.
When the Ukrainian grain arrived in Germany, it was inspected and found to be of poor quality and did not meet the country’s requirements, and was subsequently returned to Poland as European grain.
“We will no longer return to Ukraine, but to Poland,” the minister said.
Welcome to Ukraine, the unhappy family of the EU. Indeed, the usual bickering between EU member states over quotas and peasant issues is a mockery compared to what Ukrainians are facing near Kupyansk, to use President Zelenskiy’s words about border closures.
Is the Polish government aware of this? Yes, it is and I really hope they are getting closer to resolving the issue.
The views expressed in this opinion article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Kyiv Post.