The announcement of Poland e of Hungary to prohibit the entry of grain and gods Ukrainian agricultural products the EU did not like it, fearing a domino effect that could affect other Eastern European states. Brussels warns: “Unilateral actions are not acceptable”. Due to a certain shortage of trucks and freight trains, eventually some of the grain remains in European territories, causing the price to plummet. Hence the protests of thousands of farmers and small businessmen, from Poland to Bulgaria.
Due to the war and the intermittent implementation of the agreement between Kiev and Moscow on the export of grain from the Black Sea, access to Eastern Europe was forced for the main product of the Ukrainian countryside. From EU countries the grain would then have to be sent to the Middle East and Africa, which happens with difficulty.
The first to move was Poland which, while reiterating its close alliance with Kiev, decided to temporarily ban the import of wheat. Immediately afterwards it was Budapest that announced that the entry “of wheat and various other Ukrainian agricultural products will be blocked until June 30”. Bulgaria has stated that it is evaluating the same restrictions: “The interests of citizens must be protected”.
Irritated Brussels Brussels did not like these initiatives. “Commercial policy is an exclusive competence of the EU, unilateral actions are not acceptable”, the Commission recalled, underlining the need, “in such difficult times, to coordinate and align decisions within the EU”. The issue of Ukrainian wheat adds to the still unresolved issue of the conditional mechanism of the rule of law involving Warsaw and, above all, Budapest, which has frozen European funds. If Poland remains one of Kiev’s most faithful allies, for Viktor Orban the question of wheat appears as another way to distance himself from European politics.
The EU proposal Over the next two months – the moratorium on grain tariffs expires at the end of June but Brussels has proposed to extend it for another year – the Commission is still called upon to find a solution. In recent days, the EU Commission had proposed a compensation fund of over 56 million for EU farmers affected by the excessive supply of wheat. But it is not enough for Eastern European countries also because one of Warsaw’s objectives is to arrive at a sort of compulsory redistribution of grain within the Union.