Polish Prime Minister accuses PiS party of opening borders for grain from Ukraine

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk on Wednesday, June 11, accused the Law and Justice Party (PiS) of damaging the country's agriculture due to the opening of borders for grain from Ukraine.

"We are talking about topics that are of great concern to many Poles. For example, agriculture. You write that this topic is very popular in the Polish countryside. Perhaps because not everyone understood exactly where the threat to the Polish countryside was coming from. I remember exactly, because then, a year and a half ago, I remember it, in June it all started," said Tusk.

According to him, it was then that the Law and Justice party, hiding behind slogans about protecting Polish farmers, opened the border with Ukraine for grain — without any control and analysis of the consequences.

"Every day there are cars (with grain. They entered Poland and flooded it with this grain. When we raised a fuss — farmers, Polish producers, the opposition at that time — we raised a cry, we were outraged, and PIS reassured us: nothing is happening, everything is fine," the prime minister said.

Tusk stressed that Polish farmers were now in a vulnerable position, and this was a direct result of the decisions of his political opponents.

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Representatives of the agricultural sector in Poland protested in front of the European Commission (EC) building in Warsaw on January 3. It is reported that several thousand people, under the slogan "Five times no," opposed the import of agricultural products from Ukraine, European environmental standards, and the decline of the Polish economy.

EC representative Balash Uvari said on May 22 that the European Union had decided not to extend the temporary duty-free import of agricultural products from Ukraine.