RMF FM announced on 17 August a conversation with the Ukrainian Ambassador Vasil Bodnar about Ukrainian grain transport through Poland and a possible increase in the transit pool. The case is coming back due to the fact that Kiev is looking for export routes under force in the Black Sea. For Polish farmers, this means investigating national borders, ports and controls.
The grain is back on the table.
RMF FM announced that Vasyl Bodnar, the Ukrainian ambassador to Poland, would be the guest of the morning talk. Topics are intended to cover, among others, the phase of talks about the transport of Ukrainian grain by Poland, a possible increase in the transfer pool and whether Kiev wants greater transit of another agricultural products. The list of questions itself shows that the substance is not a method detail.
For the Polish village it is simply a very circumstantial subject: acquisition prices, port capacity, railways, border controls and warrant that the goods going in transit will truly leave Poland. In national politics, kindness towards a state fighting Russian aggression cannot mean consent to chaos on its own market. Ukraine's aid cannot be a bill issued to a Polish farmer.
In fresh days, the National diary has written that grain case besides returns through fresh routes and logistics preferences. This is not an isolated episode. It is part of the greater fight for the export of Ukrainian agricultural production in war conditions and for who will bear the costs of this operation.
Embargo and transit are 2 different things
Poland has a work to defender the discrimination that frequently blurs in public debate. What is different is the import into the Polish marketplace and what is different is the controlled transit through the territory of the country. National taxation Administration recalls that On 16 September 2023, the regulation on the prohibition of imports into Poland of selected agricultural products from Ukraine entered into force., including any cereals, oil seeds, sharps and macaws. This prohibition does not apply to external transit and common transit procedure if the journey ends in certain seaports or outside Poland.
That's the point of the argument. Farmers did not protest the very fact that Ukraine must export. They protested against a situation where inexpensive goods stay in the country, pushes national production and breaks down prices. A country that cannot separate between transit and import gives up its own control.
In 2023 the Ministry of Agriculture described control mechanisms according to which Ukrainian grain transit through Poland was to be secured with sealsAnd the KAS officers were to control the seals at border crossing points. Today, the question is not whether specified procedures be on paper, but whether the state is prepared to enforce them under greater logistical pressure.
Kiev wants silence, Poland needs transparency
Bodnar spoke late in a conversation mentioned by Ukriformin that the question of utilizing Poland as a transit hub for Ukrainian grain is powerfully politicised and should not be put into public discussion for the time being. This position is understandable from the point of view of Kiev diplomacy. From the point of view of Poland, it is insufficient.
The Polish village has a right to know the rules before decisions are made. It has the right to know whether it is only grain or another agricultural products. He has a right to know how much merchandise he's going to drive, which way he's going to go, at what time and at whose cost. Secretity in matters that hit the farmer's wallet gives emergence to suspicion and strengthens extremist sentiments. The liable state does not underestimate this.
All the more reason The right-wing Members have already warned about talks with Kiev about grain. The government should talk the language of numbers and procedures, not calming formulas. How many wagons, how many tons, what passages, what ports, what checks, what sanctions for breaking the rules. Without that, all declaration sounds like a request for trust without cover.
The Black Sea puts force on Poland
The background is serious. The EU Council pointed out that before the full-scale war about 90% of agricultural products were exported from Ukraine by sea and after the Russian blockade of the Black Sea ports, exports had virtually ceased. In July 2023 Russia withdrew from the Black Sea grain initiative, and 60% of Ukrainian grain was then transported through solidarity corridors.
This means that any further blow to Ukrainian ports increases force on land routes. Poland lies in 1 of the most crucial directions. And that is why Warsaw cannot act like a broadcast belt of another people's interests. The alliance with Ukraine against Russian imperialism is simply a safety issue. The protection of the Polish farmer is an economical reason. Both of these rations must be reconciled hard, not sentimentally.
National interest before pressure
The Polish answer should be simple. The transit is if it is tight, countable and does not block Polish exports. Import to the Polish marketplace does not if it hits our producers and breaks price stability. Brussels must not require the front States to pay the bill for geopolitical decisions of the full Union.
There is no place for anti-Ukrainian emotions or for pretending that the problem does not exist. Ukraine defends itself against Russia and has the right to search export routes. Poland has the right to defend its own market, its own ports and its own farms. National realism is precisely that relationship between countries starts with clear conditions.
If talks with Bodnar are to explain anything, the most crucial answer should concern not diplomatic tone, but guarantees for the Polish village. Without them, the grain will one more time become a origin of conflict. Not due to farmers, but due to a country that would let a strategical problem to be dealt with in half-words.
Source: RMF24, Ukriformin, KAS, Ministry of Agriculture and agrarian Development, EU Council.
Source: RMF24
