Polish Agriculture Minister Robert Telus said on Tuesday imports of Ukrainian grains “will be very carefully controlled” after Warsaw temporarily suspended grain imports from Ukraine to Poland.
Telus told a Warsaw newspaper that the decision to temporarily stop buying grain from Ukraine was agreed with Kiev authorities.
“It is not yet the intention to reduce these imports, every new shipment will be very carefully checked from now on”said the Polish Agriculture Minister.
Shortly after the start of the new Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Polish farmers complained of losses, which they say were caused by the one-year moratorium granted by the European Union on imports of Ukrainian grains: transactions without taxes.
“Convincing the European Union to impose tariffs on Ukrainian grain is and will remain a very difficult task”Telus said, adding “that Brussels talks about sanctions against Russia and on the other hand pretends not to know that much of the grain that enters Europe comes from the south” and who is probably “not Ukrainian” and of Russian descent.
In the same interview, the Polish minister considered the European Union’s action in this matter too slow and warned that “due to poor coordination” European farmers and “especially those from two or three countries” “pay for everything”.
Last week, Poland’s former agriculture minister Henryk Kowalcyk resigned after defending the European Union’s restoration of controls on Ukrainian grain imports.
The issue had already been raised during the visit of the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, to Poland.
After taking office, the new Polish agriculture minister organized a crisis office, after traveling to the border of Dorohusk (east), where he met his Ukrainian counterpart, Mykola Solski.
At the meeting, Telus said he clearly stated his position on the “temporary blockade of grain imports in Poland”.
For example, it was decided to “limit the supply of grains from Ukraine for some time, including temporarily blocking imports.”
Polish farmers’ associations claim that the goods coming from “Ukraine do not have the same density or the same quality” as demanded by local producers, and therefore demand 50% import duties on Ukrainian grain.
According to the same associations, some 2.5 million tons of grain from Ukraine are stored in Poland.
Source: DN
