Poland explains snub to Ukrainian farmers
Poland will not accept or store Ukrainian grain because Warsaw is putting the interests of its own farmers first, Jadwiga Emilewicz, the country's state secretary for development co-operation with Ukraine has told the Financial Times.
Despite being one of Kiev’s main backers in its conflict with Moscow, Poland is currently among the countries pushing the EU to extend its ban on Ukrainian wheat, maize, rapeseed and sunflower seeds, which was imposed in May, until the end of the year.
Warsaw needs to safeguard Polish farmers before helping those from Ukraine, just like airplane security rules state that “it is the mother who has to put on the [oxygen] mask first and then the kid’s,” Emilewicz said, explaining Poland’s stance.
The state secretary also complained about the lack of progress by the US on fulfilling Joe Biden’s pledge to build more grain silos in the countries bordering Ukraine.
“Biden made this promise publicly … but when we started to ask about it [during a visit to Washington in July], no one in the [US] administration was ready to answer the question,” she said.
During a speech in Philadelphia in June 2022, the US leader said that “we’re going to build silos, temporary silos on the borders of Ukraine, including in Poland. So we can transfer [grain] from those cars into those silos into cars in Europe and get it out into the ocean, and get it out across the world.” However, Biden stressed that the project was “taking time.”
According to Emilewicz, Poland is currently in a “very fruitful harvest period, the capacity of Polish silos and the storage system is definitely not enough to absorb Ukrainian grain, sunflower and other goods.”
The only thing Warsaw can do for Kiev is allow for “more transportation” of Ukrainian grain through its territory, provided that it’s going to international markets, she said.
Poland also wants the EU to agree to a new subsidy of around 30 euros per ton of Ukrainian grain that transits via Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria, the politician pointed out.
Emilewicz insisted that “some extra money is necessary” as it is more expensive to transport cargo by rail or road than by sea routes, which remain closed for Ukrainian grain since the collapse of the Black Sea grain deal in July.
