Farmers in several European countries have protested against the EU’s agricultural policy. In Poland and Hungary, the protests were also specifically directed against imports from Ukraine.
There are protests in several of Ukraine’s EU neighbors against imports of agricultural products from the country attacked by Russia. In Hungary, farmers blocked a lane at the main border crossing with Ukraine near Zahony with numerous tractors.
Hungary’s Chamber of Agriculture and the Magosz farmers’ association called for the protests. Both institutions are led by members of parliament from the ruling right-wing populist party Fidesz. Fidesz chairman and Prime Minister Viktor Orban had also previously expressed understanding for the farmers’ protests in Europe.
In Poland, according to media reports, farmers with slow-moving tractors slowed down traffic on many roads. According to Ukrainian sources, protesting farmers also blocked the Medyka-Schegyni crossing on the border with Ukraine. “We have no other choice,” Marcin Wilgos, a farmer and organizer of the protest in the border town of Dorohusk, told the AFP news agency. “The flood of products from Ukraine that are not manufactured according to EU standards and procedures is a great burden for us.”
Polish minister: “A legitimate interest”
Farmers have a legitimate concern when they demand a limit on the excessive flow of goods from Ukraine and other non-European markets to the EU and especially to Poland, said Polish Agriculture Minister Czeslaw Siekierski.
While the Hungarian government is pursuing a Russia-friendly course, Poland is one of Ukraine’s most important political and military supporters. But farmers there fear competition from Ukraine. According to Polish farmers’ associations, cheap products from Ukraine have been driving down prices since the EU suspended tariffs on many imports as a result of Russia’s war of aggression.
Protest also against the EU’s “Green Deal”.
The farmers’ protest is also directed against EU agricultural policy as a whole – and it is not just limited to Ukraine’s neighboring countries. There were also protests in Spain and Italy, similar to those in France, Greece and Germany.
Farmers are concerned about the EU’s “Green Deal”, which, according to the EU Commission, aims to “make the transition to a modern, resource-efficient and competitive economy” by achieving zero net greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 Growth is linked to the use of resources and the use of chemicals is limited.
As a result, farmers fear a reduction in their production and income. They claim that the EU requirement to dedicate four percent of agricultural land to protecting the landscape and biodiversity also has a negative impact on their production.
In Rome, farmers use the backdrop of the Colosseum for their protest.
Call for the resignation of the Polish EU Commissioner
In Rome, a small convoy of tractors moved through the historic center to the Colosseum. On their fourth day of protests in a row, farmers in Spain carried out similar actions to their Polish colleagues and blocked several streets with their tractors.
The Polish Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski, who was appointed by the former national-conservative PiS government, is responsible for the EU’s agricultural policy in Brussels. Deputy Prime Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz, representative of the PSL farmers’ party in the new center-left government, is calling for the commissioner’s resignation. “There is a man in Europe who has united all European farmers against the reform he proposed. That is Janusz Wojciechowski,” said Kosiniak-Kamysz. But PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski also announced that he wanted to ask Wojciechowski to resign from office.