Polish media: Poland may end blockade as government ready to sign agreement

The Polish government is ready to sign an agreement with farmers to end the blockade of checkpoints to Ukraine. The Polish Ministry of Agriculture has agreed to fulfill three conditions of the farmers.

As the Polish edition of Rzeczpospolita has learned, the Ministry of Agriculture is organizing a meeting with the farmers, but the final decision has not been made until Friday evening. Farmers from the Shukana Wieś association returned to blocking the border crossing between Ukraine and Poland in Medyka.

The first blockade lasted for a month, from November 23 to December 24, 2023, and was suspended on Christmas Eve after a meeting with Agriculture Minister Czeslaw Siekierski and State Secretary Michal Kolodziejczak.

Now the farmers have returned to blocking the Polish-Ukrainian border, although the government has promised to meet their demands, which relate to both food imports from Ukraine and purely Polish financial issues. "I know that these funds are in the budget. However, the adoption of the budget is a process," Siekierski said at yesterday's conference.

Some of these demands are surprising, such as the requirement to create an agricultural adviser in every Polish diplomatic mission to facilitate grain trade from the Polish market. According to unofficial sources, the agreement may be signed on January 6 in Rzeszów.

Minister Siekierski agreed to three demands: corn subsidies, no tax increases, and cheap loans. The Ministry is still waiting for the European Commission's notification on corn subsidies. The blockade of the Polish-Ukrainian border is creating more and more problems not only for the parties to the conflict. More and more EU carriers do not understand or accept the Polish blockade.

As reported by OBOZ.UA, thousands of trucks remain in queues at the Polish-Ukrainian border. The most difficult situation is at the entrances to the largest checkpoint Yagodyn, which allows only about 10% of the vehicles that are physically able to cross the border there.

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