Polish minister will demand limitations on Green Deal

Polish Agriculture Minister Czesław Siekierski will call for restrictions on the European Green Deal at Monday’s EU Council meeting as farmers continue to protest, the minister commented during a Ministry conference on Sunday.

Siekierski also commented on his meeting the previous day with Polish farmers, who are continuing their protests against the European Green Deal and the increased influx of Ukrainian production into the country.

“I will (…) demand to put limitations on the European Green Deal,” at the Council of the EU, Siekierski announced, clarifying that he meant the solutions related to using pesticides and minimum share of arable land to non-productive areas or features, among other things.

According to Siekierski, the farmers’ protests result from “certain omissions, but also bad solutions.”

These bad solutions include the Green Deal, which he said was approved by the former Polish government, but also “largely prepared by the incumbent Commissioner for Agriculture Janusz Wojciechowski.”

The solutions introduced by the Green Deal are unacceptable to Polish farmers, Siekierski insisted. “The farmers even believe that the solutions violate their professional dignity,” he argued.

He also said he expected “greater openness” from the Commission on changes to both the Green Deal and Ukraine’s trade rules, the liberalisation of which has led to Ukrainian food flooding the Polish market.

The minister stressed that he hoped the visit of EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to Warsaw on Friday would bring a change in the EU executive’s approach to agricultural policy. Among other things, he wanted the Commission to consider support for farmers affected by the Green Deal solutions.

He believes it was von der Leyen who made the case for maintaining the suspension of trade barriers against Ukraine, despite opposition from Poland and other countries in the region.

“We need certain security mechanisms, certain guarantees against distorting the markets with such extensive liberalisation,” Siekierski said.

Farmers’ protests continue across the country, with demonstrators blocking key roads and border crossings with Ukraine. The blockade has met with Kyiv’s outrage, but Siekierski believes tensions may be de-escalated through negotiations.

“We want these negotiations to start as quickly as possible. They will enable us to speak not only about opening the markets but also the EU requirements from the Ukrainian production,” he said.

“European farmers cannot understand why Ukrainian food is allowed on the EU market despite non-compliance with the rules in force there,” Jerzy Wierzbicki of the Polish Union of Beef Cattle Breeders and Farmers told Euractiv.

(Aleksandra Krzysztoszek | Euractiv.pl)