Anna Bryłka summed up Donald Tusk's policy of agricultural imports from Ukraine. The MEP of the Confederation recalled that the cabinet supported the increase in duty-free quotas for agri-food goods from Ukraine. For Polish farms, which have been facing the influx of inexpensive competition for respective years, it is another blow.
Bitter irony towards government narrative
The part referred to the way the ruling camp presented its agricultural policy. Donald Tusk's squad liked to introduce themselves as a strong defender of the Polish village, ready to set limits to EU ideas. According to the Euro MP, the practice was different. The government supported a solution that increases duty-free quotas for agri-food products from above Dniepr. Hence, her comment on “hard decisions”, in which it is hard not to hear irony.
Duty-free gate opened after 2022
The dispute over agricultural imports has continued since Russia's invasion of Ukraine. In the spring of 2022, the European Union suspended customs duties and quotas for Ukrainian goods in order to support the economy of the affected country. The effects were most felt by border countries. Large quantities of cereals, poultry, sugar and eggs flowed to Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania. The buying-in prices went down and the products that were to go further into the planet were mostly on the spot.
Farmers remember locks and embargoes
The year 2023 brought a wave of protests. Polish farmers blocked border crossings and demanded marketplace protection. In the autumn of that year, Warsaw introduced a unilateral ban on imports of Ukrainian grain, maintained despite opposition from Brussels and Kiev. Protests returned in early 2024 as tractors again stood on the roads and the border. For many farms this was not an abstraction, but a question of survival.
Food sovereignty is at stake
Against this background, the charge of the part sounds specific. If a government that promised a tough defence of farmers agrees to larger duty-free quotas, then its declarations and decisions are scattered. It's more than 1 low-price season. Polish agriculture is besides a substance of food safety and capital, which stays in the country. Is the word "hard decisions" even covered erstwhile the marketplace is expanding?
Source: To Things
