WARSAW, April 18 Polish farmers protesting against the supply of agricultural products from Ukraine, they resumed the blockade of two border crossings on the Polish-Ukrainian border, radio station RMF24 reports.
The protest in Medyka and Korchova resumed at 8 am local time (09.00 Moscow time). The protesters' plan is to allow only one truck per hour through. Passenger cars and buses can pass freely.
«We are constantly waiting for negotiations with the government. The agreements signed in Yasenka with the authorities are not being fulfilled. We are waiting for the promised order on additional payments for grain,» said one of the organizers of the protests, Roman Kondruv.
Meanwhile, the blockade of the crossings in Dorohusk and Khrebenny continues. There are no traffic restrictions at the checkpoints in Dolgobychovo and Zosin. There, farmers decided that they could not sacrifice the sowing season, and went to work in the fields, not excluding that protests and blockades would resume.
In March, in Yasenka, the authorities promised farmers to limit the supply of agricultural products from Ukraine and introduce government surcharges to farmers.
The nationwide protest of farmers began on February 9. Farmers in Poland are protesting throughout the country, blocking roads and entrances to checkpoints on the border with Ukraine. At border crossings, unknown persons have already spilled grain from Ukrainian trucks and railway cars several times. The main demands of the protesters are to stop the import of agricultural products from Ukraine to Poland and to abandon the EU’s environmental plans (the so-called Green Deal), which involve achieving zero emissions into the atmosphere by 2050.
Polish-Ukrainian relations have become significantly more complicated due to the embargo on Ukrainian grain. On September 15, 2023, the European Commission decided not to extend restrictions on the import of four types of Ukrainian agricultural products into several EU border countries, but obliged Kyiv to introduce export control measures. After this, the authorities of Slovakia, Hungary and Poland announced that they were extending the ban unilaterally. In this regard, Ukraine filed a complaint with the WTO. In response, three EU countries announced that they would boycott meetings of the coordination platform on Ukrainian grain.