Polish farmers protest against cheap agricultural imports from Ukraine. At the Medyka border crossing they open Ukrainian freight cars and let corn fall onto the tracks.
Polish farmers opened Ukrainian freight wagons with grain at the Medyka border crossing, briefly blocking the tracks on the strategically important railway line. A group of 25 farmers ran from the site of a demonstration on a country road onto the nearby tracks, a local police spokeswoman told the PAP news agency. The action was ended within a few minutes after negotiations with police officers. A small amount of grain got onto the tracks.
A video from social networks circulated on Ukrainian public television showing farmers unloading corn from several freight wagons from the eastern neighboring country and singing the Polish national anthem.
Protest against the EU agricultural policy
Ukrainian Railways confirmed the incident at the Polish border station at Medyka. The two open grain wagons were intended for Germany. In total there are around 40 Ukrainian wagons with agricultural goods in this station. The Polish railway and the Ukrainian embassy in Poland were informed “about the unauthorized interference in the operation of the railway”.
The action is part of nationwide farmers’ protests. They are directed against EU agricultural policy, but also against the import of cheap agricultural products from Ukraine. Farmers have been blocking the border crossings to the neighboring country to the east in Dorohusk, Hrebenne, Korczowa and Medyka for a long time. On Tuesday they also blocked motorways, traffic circles and intersections in 200 places.
“We farmers from all over Poland were the first to extend a hand of friendship and welcome our brothers from Ukraine. And now we are being harmed by them,” Roman Kondrow from the initiative “The Deceived Village” told the radio station Rmf.fm. “Various mafia organizations bring this grain to Poland. There is no other way to put it.”
Polish farmers also complain that the EU’s Green Deal imposes new conditions on them, while grain and other agricultural products from Ukraine are allowed onto the market that could be produced more cheaply without these conditions.
The Foreign Ministry in Kiev called on Warsaw to end the blockades and take action against “anti-Ukrainian rhetoric.” “There is no justification for the blockade of the Polish-Ukrainian border, whatever slogans may accompany it,” wrote Foreign Office spokesman Oleh Nikolenko on Facebook.
Source: Stern
