Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Bulgaria banned imports of grain and other foodstuffs from Ukraine last week after falling prices sparked protests among local farmers.
But on Tuesday, the Polish Minister of Agriculture announced that Warsaw and Kiev had reached an agreement on resuming the process of transporting Ukrainian grain across the Polish border after it was suspended on Saturday.
Ukraine has been transporting such exports across EU borders since the outbreak of war in Ukraine disrupted the usual shipping routes across the Black Sea.
On Friday, the Polish authorities said that they had reopened dozens of foodstuffs, including sugar, meat, fruits and vegetables, but Ukrainian exporters were still unable to sell these products on the Polish market.
“We assume that the check-in processes will be smooth, and so far there are no signs of queues,” the head of the Polish Customs Authority, Bartosz Zbarashczuk, told RMF24 broadcaster.
The ban was lifted at 2 a.m. on Friday when the government decision to do so came into force.
Over the course of a week, Polish customs officials will accompany trucks loaded with exports.
“We will not take our eyes off these transfers until the trucks enter the port to load the ships with grain, for example, or when they leave the Polish border,” Zbarashczuk added.
However, the protesting farmers considered that allowing the transit of these products could cause further harm to Polish exporters.
Vislav Burzynski of the Chamber of Agriculture of the Pomerania region told reporters on Friday that lifting the ban “will not help our farms and warehouses, because Ukrainian grain and products will compete with our products.”
In an effort to calm farmers, the Polish government on Friday announced a new round of agricultural subsidies worth 10 billion zlotys ($2.38 billion), urging the European Union to agree to the new measures.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said during a press conference, “The approval must come from the European Commission, so that a European employee does not knock on the farmer’s door somewhere and demand a refund.”
The populist right-wing government in Warsaw accused the European Union of failing to help farmers.
Brussels stressed earlier that any unilateral ban on Ukrainian exports is “unacceptable,” stressing that trade policy is the exclusive responsibility of the European Union.
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