Polish farmers resume blockade of border crossing with Ukraine

WARSAW — Polish farmers restarted a blockade of a Poland-Ukraine border crossing on Thursday, accusing the new Polish government of failing to guarantee it will meet their demands for financial help.

The farmers rejoined truckers at the Medyka-Shehyni crossing — hauliers are also blocking other crossings complaining about competition from Ukrainian rivals — turning the border issue into a political minefield for the new government in Warsaw.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk needs to defuse the protests while not angering the transport and farming lobbies, all while ensuring that Kyiv gets material and political support to resist Russia’s war of aggression.

Tusk said on Wednesday that he wants to investigate why the protesting farmers are back at the border and why they had so little trust in a deal struck with his government last month to end the blockade.

He also worried about the signal being sent by the protests.

“I will convince Polish hauliers not to use blockade as a method of defending their interests. Our arguments will be better heard when Poland is not a country blocking the border,” Tusk said, while adding: “My government and I personally will do everything, whether they block or not, to effectively protect their interests in this unequal competition with Ukrainian hauliers.”

The farmers blocked the Medyka crossing for a month before ending their protest on December 24 following a a deal with the government. But now some farmers are back, saying they don’t trust the agreement as it doesn’t bear Tusk’s signature.

Not enough

Their key complaint is for the government to defend them against Ukrainian grain imports, but the specific issues they’re pressing have nothing to do with Ukraine. The farmers want corn production subsidies, a lower agricultural tax in 2024, and to keep preferential liquidity loans in place.

New Agriculture Minister Czesław Siekierski pledged before Christmas to meet these demands. He published a note Tuesday saying the ministry “accepts all three demands and commits to implementing them.” 

“Meeting the demands involves planned efforts that are currently underway. The coordination process between different ministries, budget considerations, and the European Commission takes time,” the note also said, adding that making the demands reality was “progressing positively in terms of procedures.”

But the protesting farmers say it’s not enough.

“We want the minister to sign a bilateral agreement with us,” Roman Kondrów, one of the protest leaders, told the Polish press, adding: “The ministerial note doesn’t constitute an agreement.”

Agriculture Minister Czesław Siekierski pledged before Christmas to meet the farmers’ demands | Fred Marvaux/EP

Siekierski said on Thursday: “I can sign the agreement, but it will be the same information as in the memo, only with the signature of the farmers.”

The farmers’ protest group, Betrayed Countryside, is small, with five to 10 people taking part in the protests on rotating eight-hour shifts.

They say the blockade will continue until February 3 unless the ministry gives them a credible guarantee that their demands will be met. They are letting three trucks through an hour, while also allowing buses and cars to pass.

Kondrów argued the protest is meant as a wake-up call to the Polish authorities and the wider EU about what he called rampant corruption in Ukraine’s agricultural sector and the risks of allowing the country to join the bloc without restrictions.

“Ukraine is such a country that they just want to take, take, take and give nothing back,” he told POLITICO by phone. “It outrages us, we’ve helped them so much, and the gratitude we get is that we can’t sell our own wheat or corn.”

Polish truckers are protesting as they want the government to end an EU-Ukraine agreement that liberalized road transport rules in an effort to help the Ukrainian economy, crippled by the Russian invasion.

Underpinning the narratives of both groups are doomsday scenarios about the impact on Poland of Ukraine one day becoming a member of the EU. Leaders of the bloc agreed at a summit in December to open accession talks with Ukraine.

Wojciech Kość reported from Warsaw, and Bartosz Brzeziński from Brussels.