Despite intensive talks, Polish farmers will go ahead with their plans to block a road on the Lithuanian-Polish border for a week from Friday, but the blockade will be partial, Agriculture Minister Kęstutis Navickas has said.
“The initial information was a full blockade, then it changed to passenger cars, now it changed to selective, and, finally, to normal procedures. What this means, we will only find out tomorrow morning,” Navickas told a press conference on Thursday.
The minister said that Lithuania’s authorities had held intensive talks over the week both with the Polish Agriculture Ministry and with the protesters, mediated by the Lithuanian Chamber of Agriculture.
“The final round of talks was taking place until late yesterday. Unfortunately, today I have to state that a partial blockade is planned for tomorrow from 11:00 Lithuanian time,” Navickas said.
Lithuania’s Agriculture Ministry has not received specific demands from the Polish farmers, he added. They say that Ukrainian grain coming from Poland to Lithuania is being returned or processed and exported again as Lithuanian production. Such claims seem unfounded, according to Navickas.
On March 1, Polish farmers are planning to start two new blockades: at the Polish-German border crossing in Świecko and on the road at the former Budzisko-Kalvarija crossing on the border with Lithuania. The blockade is expected to last for about a week.
Russia influence?
According to Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė, the Polish farmers’ planned blockade on the border with Lithuania looks like the Kremlin’s hybrid operation.
“The attempt to claim that Lithuania is somehow used in some kind of grain carousel very much looks like the Kremlin’s attempts to pit the two biggest supporters of Ukraine against each other,” she told BNS.
“I would say the protest itself has more to do with the political cycle, but the false information used as arguments allow us to suspect that third countries are taking advantage of this situation,” the prime minister added.
Customs data shows that Lithuania imported just over 100,000 tons of Ukrainian grain last year, which is very little compared to Lithuania’s own production volumes, Šimonytė said.
Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis also said on Wednesday that the Polish farmers’ actions resemble “hybrid operations which are intensively exploited by Russian propaganda”.
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However, Konstanty Radziwiłł, Poland’s ambassador to Lithuania, believes that it is wrong to accuse protesting Polish farmers of being influenced by Russia.
“Similar demonstrations have taken place and are taking place across the European Union,” the ambassador told reporters in Vilnius on Thursday. “I think it would be a very big mistake and very wrong if we said that farmers are protesting because they are encouraged to do so by Russia. This is not the case.”
According to Radziwiłł, most of the issues raised by farmers are addressed directly to EU bodies and are justified.
In his words, the issues of the import and transit of Ukrainian grain through Poland are a result of a solidarity decision and “the weight of a solidarity decision must also be borne in solidarity”.
“The farmers’ position seems quite reasonable, and it cannot be that a farmer cannot sell their produce because the European Union has decided to support Ukraine in a gesture of solidarity,” he said.
In recent weeks, Polish farmers have already blocked the border with Ukraine and an important road to Germany, in protest against Ukraine’s duty-free agricultural exports.
For her part, Asta Skaisgirytė, an advisor to the Lithuanian president, also said that farmers’ protests “are taking place all over the EU”.
“Of course, speaking of the Ukrainian aspect, Russia will certainly seize the opportunity to add fuel to the fire to make Ukraine suffer. Our goal is to listen to the farmers’ demands but to give Ukraine the best possible conditions to export its grain as it is a country at war and they need funding to be able to stand up to Russia,” she said.
Lithuania hopes to organise a Lublin Triangle meeting to ease tensions between Poland and Ukraine over grain exports, Skaisgirytė noted.
Since attacking Ukraine, Russia has blocked key Black Sea trade routes Ukrainians used to export their agricultural products.
To help Kyiv economically, the EU decided in 2022 to lift tariffs on Ukrainian goods transiting the 27-nation bloc. However, due to logistical problems, much of Ukraine’s grain exports have been concentrated in Poland, pushing prices down for local producers.
Tensions between Poland and Ukraine are rising as a result of border blockades and the grain isue. There have been at least four incidents when Polish farmers spilled Ukrainian grain from trucks and freight trains.
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