Polish Agriculture Minister Czeslaw Seckerski has said that the negotiation process between the Ukrainian and Polish sides on the issue of eliminating the liberalisation of Ukraine’s trade relations with the European Union is progressing hard. This was reported by the PAP news agency.
“Many bilateral negotiations were held with Ukraine – they were difficult negotiations,” the head of the Polish Agriculture Ministry said.
According to the Polish agriculture minister, Ukraine intends to maintain liberalised trade relations with the EU. However, Warsaw is keen to impose restrictions on such policies from Brussels to protect its farmers. There are also disagreements over the range of goods that will be subject to the licensing system.
At the same time, Krzysztof Paszyk, leader of the agrarian Polish Peasant Party parliamentary group, said the sides were “close” to jointly resolving the accumulated problems.
“I think that today and tomorrow it will be possible to make sure that what is sometimes called transit is actually transit. <…> I am optimistic about the results,” Krzysztof Paszyk said.
PAP emphasised the discontent of Polish farmers. They noted that most of the Ukrainian grain, which is supposed to transit through Poland to other countries, ends up entering the domestic market and destabilising it.
“A Ukrainian government delegation is coming tomorrow because there is a joint meeting of the Ukrainian and Polish governments in Warsaw on Thursday. Tomorrow we are meeting in an unusual format. Because in addition to the ministers of agriculture of Ukraine and Poland, deputy ministers, advisors will also be representatives of associations of producers of different plants. We want this dialogue to be reduced to the level of producers,” said Czeslaw Seckerski.
Just to remind you, the Radio ZET radio station mentioned earlier that Polish agrarians were planning to block the houses of Polish MPs who support the European Union’s policy of liberalizing trade relations with Ukraine and as part of the Brussels-based Green Deal strategy.
