“We are discussing with the Ukrainian side a temporary closure of the border and a halt to trade”, said Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk on Wednesday 28 February. He was reacting to the blockades by farmers at the border which had been in place for over a week. The farmers are protesting the influx of Ukrainian cereals onto the Polish market, despite the fact they are currently subject to an import ban on the part of Warsaw.
The Polish Prime Minister said he would discuss the potential closure of the border with farmers on Thursday 29 February. “This solution would only be temporary... and mutually costly”, he added.
However, the Ukrainian Deputy Minister for the Economy and Trade Representative, Taras Kachka, said that this measure had not been mentioned during his meeting with the Polish Ministers for Agriculture and Development on Wednesday.
The European Commission has proposed to renew the suspension of tariffs and tariff quotas on imports of Ukrainian products until June 2025, with volume limits for poultry, eggs and sugar, as well as a rapidly triggerable safeguard mechanism (see EUROPE 13340/7).
According to Donald Tusk, though, the import quotas proposed by the Commission are not satisfactory. (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)