Farmers block an important border crossing with Germany

Polish farmers began closing an important border crossing with Germany, in Slobice, on Sunday in protest against European regulations and imports of products from outside the EU that they consider do not meet European standards. “The blockage started at one o’clock in the afternoon, and both lanes of the A2 highway were blocked,” local police spokesman Ewa Murmillo said.

Dariush Froebel, one of the movement's organizers, said that the farmers initially planned to close the road for 25 days, but after discussions with local residents, businessmen and transporters, they decided to “open the pass most likely tomorrow, Monday,” one of the movement's organizers said.

Against the European Green Deal

“It depends on things we cannot predict,” he said on the eve of the EU Agriculture Ministers’ Council meeting on Monday in Brussels. “We have to start taking ourselves seriously,” Darius Froebel said. “We are protesting against the European Green Deal, we must finally control imports of agricultural food products from countries outside the European Union, and we must take care of agricultural production in the European Union,” he said.

According to him, Polish farmers “sympathize” with the entire farmers' protest movement across the continent. Protests have been taking place for several weeks in Poland, with farmers blocking roads across the country and border crossings with Ukraine.

Poland has been among Ukraine's biggest supporters since the launch of the Russian attack in February 2022, but relations between them have been poisoned in recent months due to trade disputes, especially after Brussels opened European borders to Ukrainian agricultural products, which, according to the Daily Mail, British. For Polish farmers, it does not meet EU standards.

“Far from agreement”

Isolated cases of Ukrainian agricultural products being dumped on roads or railway lines near the Polish-Ukrainian border have also been recorded. The Polish government indicated on Friday that Warsaw and Kiev are “far from reaching an agreement” on the import of Ukrainian agricultural products.

For his part, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmygal announced that Ukraine reserves “the right to apply retaliatory measures.” Poland included crossing points with Ukraine in the list of “critical infrastructure” to avoid disruptions that could affect the delivery of military and humanitarian aid to this country.