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Polish truckers are preparing to extend into a third month a blockade along the border with Ukraine despite pledges made by Prime Minister Donald Tusk to end the dispute and improve relations with Kyiv.
On Thursday, hauliers were set to be rejoined by farmers at the Medyka border crossing, who are ramping up their own protest against cheaper Ukrainian competition.
The long queues at several Polish border crossings with Ukraine have cast a shadow over Tusk’s first weeks in office, after he promised to visit Kyiv soon and resolve the trade issues in talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Tusk told a news conference on Wednesday that ending the blockade was crucial “especially in the situation of increasingly intense actions by Russia”, which renewed this week heavy air strikes on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities.
The decision by both truckers and farmers to maintain the blockade “does not make negotiations easier”, Tusk said. “Our arguments will be better heard when Poland is not a country blocking borders.”
Polish truck drivers started their blockade on November 6 in protest at cheaper competition from Ukrainian hauliers. Farmers, meanwhile, had retreated from the border over winter holidays, but are now resuming their action in a drive to add sugar beet to Poland’s ban on Ukrainian farm products.
The blockade has also created something akin to a humanitarian crisis for drivers who have been stuck in their vehicles for days in freezing temperatures on their way to Ukraine. About 3,000 trucks are queueing to return from Poland, according to the latest data from the Ukrainian border guards.
Hauliers have vowed to stay put until the EU restores a system of permits to limit the number of Ukrainian lorries that can enter the EU. The permits were removed in 2022 to help Ukraine’s economy stay afloat while it was fighting the Russian invasion. EU officials have dismissed the idea of reinstating transport quotas while Ukraine is at war. Tusk also recently said that it was “unlikely” that the EU would review its road transport concessions to Ukraine.
Farmer protest leader Roman Kondrów said on Wednesday that they would return to the Medyka crossing and tighten the blockade because Poland’s new agriculture minister, Czesław Siekierski, had not met all their demands. Last month the Polish association of sugar beet producers said Siekierski also needed to grant them protection from cheaper beet grown in Ukraine.
The restrictions on farm products started last spring with a unilateral import ban on Ukrainian grain, in violation of the EU’s trade policy. Siekierski told broadcaster TVP Info on Tuesday he was ready to maintain that grain ban until “[new] regulations are developed at the EU level”. He did not mention sugar beet.
Tusk is also engaged in a tough fight to remove people appointed by the previous rightwing government, including at public broadcaster TVP. President Andrzej Duda has also sided with PiS to try to block Tusk’s media overhaul.
The Polish premier said on Wednesday that his government would soon make public the financial irregularities unearthed at different state institutions whose management has already been replaced by his government.
“It makes our hair stand on end when, step by step, we discover the grey and black areas of activity and the financial greed that ruled Poland until recently,” Tusk said.
