To protest against European regulations and imports of non-EU products that they consider do not comply with European standards, Polish farmers began to block, on Sunday February 25, an important border crossing with Germany, in Slubice.

“The blockage started at 1 p.m. (12 p.m. GMT), both lanes of the A2 motorway are cut,” Ewa Murmylo, spokesperson for the local police, told AFP.

The farmers had initially planned to block the border for 25 days, but after discussions with the local population, businessmen and transporters, they decided to "unblock the crossing probably tomorrow", Monday, the AFP Dariusz Wrobel, one of the organizers of the movement.

“It depends on things that we cannot predict,” he said, on the eve of the Council of Agriculture Ministers of the countries of the European Union, Monday in Brussels.

“We need to start taking ourselves seriously,” said Dariusz Wrobel.

“We are protesting against the European Green Deal, we must finally control imports of agri-food products from non-EU countries, and we must take care of agricultural production in the EU,” he said. precise.

According to him, Polish farmers "identify" with the entire farmers' protest movement across the continent.

Polish-Ukrainian relations poisoned

Farmer protests have been taking place for several weeks in Poland, with farmers blocking roads across the country and border crossings with Ukraine.

Poland has been among Ukraine's biggest supporters since the launch of the Russian offensive in February 2022, but their relations have been poisoned in recent months by commercial disputes.

The anger of the agricultural world is particularly linked to the opening, decided by Brussels, of European borders to Ukrainian agricultural products which, according to Polish farmers, do not respect EU standards.

Isolated cases of Ukrainian agricultural products being dumped on roads or railway tracks have also been recorded near the Polish-Ukrainian border.

See alsoPoland: farmer demonstrations and blockade of the border with Ukraine

On Friday, the Polish government told AFP that Warsaw and kyiv were "far from an agreement" on the import of Ukrainian agricultural products.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Chmygal, for his part, declared that Ukraine reserved “the right to apply retaliatory measures”.

Poland has included the crossing points with Ukraine on the list of “critical infrastructure” to avoid disruptions that could impact the delivery of military and humanitarian aid to this country.

With AFP

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