Polish farmers blocked roads nationwide and at border crossings with Ukraine on Friday, kicking off a month-long general strike to protest against EU policies and a lack of government action to protect their livelihoods.
Farmers in France, Belgium, Portugal, Greece, Spain and Germany have been protesting against constraints placed on them by EU measures to tackle climate change, as well as rising costs and what they say is unfair competition from abroad.
Polish farmers have been particularly vocal about the impact of cheap food imports from neighbouring Ukraine.
About 100 farmers and 50 cars blocked the approach to Medyka border crossing, blocking traffic for all vehicles, Ukrainian border service spokesman Andriy Demchenko said on television.
Polish media said there were over 250 blockades across the country. Images showed convoys of tractors clogging roads and banners such as “Without us, you will be hungry, naked and sober”.
“Today the whole of Europe is on fire. The Green Deal has arrived, which has destroyed our thinking about agriculture,” one of the protesters, Wieslaw Gryn, told private broadcaster TVN24 at the Hrubieszow border crossing.
“We are not against pro-ecological solutions, but they must be agreed with farmers.”
Poland’s agriculture minister said he understood the challenges farmers were facing but he hoped the protests could be organised in a way to be “the least burdensome for citizens”.
“Farmers have legitimate concerns, expectations and demands to limit the excessive inflow of goods from Ukraine, as well as from other non-European markets to the EU, especially to Poland,” Czeslaw Siekierski told public radio on Friday.
The farmers’ Solidarity trade union, which announced the protests last week, said as well as the blockade of Ukraine border crossings, it planned on-off blockades of roads throughout Poland until March 10.
In a statement at the time Solidarity said “the passivity of the Polish authorities… regarding the import of agricultural produce and food products from Ukraine leaves us with no other choice but to declare a general strike”. It also criticised EU policies.
(Reuters)
