Polish farmers blocked the Medyka border crossing with Ukraine on November 23 in a protest over the trade deal between the European Union and Mercosur, which they say will reduce their competitiveness.
Farmers across the EU fear that the Mercosur accords will bring more beef, chicken, sugar and maize from Brazil and Argentina, countries they claim use pesticides on crops and antibiotics in livestock that are outlawed in Europe.
Kyiv criticised the action, claiming it was inappropriate at a time when Ukrainians were commemorating the Holodomor famine in Soviet Ukraine from 1932 to 1933 that killed millions of Ukrainians.
The Ukrainian Embassy in Poland called the border blockade a “painful paradox”, especially on a day when Ukraine honours the victims of the Holodomor famine.
The embassy stressed that actions such as the farmers’ blockade harmed both countries’ interests and “play into the hands of those seeking to sow discord between Poles and Ukrainians.” It urged “solidarity and a joint search for solutions that consider both nations’ interests while honouring the painful history of both countries”.
The farmers protest in Medyka consisted of around 30 agricultural workers walking repeatedly across a pedestrian crossing carrying Polish flags. As a result, trucks coming from Ukraine were blocked from entering and just one per hour was allowed to leave Poland.
Roman Kondrów from a local farmers organisation Oszukana Wieś told public broadcaster Polskie Radio that farmers were also protesting to express their dissatisfaction with “the government’s failure to fulfil promises related to agriculture”.
The blockade did not apply to passenger vehicles, buses, humanitarian or military transport, which were all allowed to pass freely.
Poland’s agriculture minister Czesław Siekierski expressed his support for the farmers on social media platform X.
“The farmers’ protest in Medyka has the same goal, for which I have been fighting on various fronts for a long time,” he wrote, adding: “Let me remind you that we said NO to the agreement with the Mercosur countries in the Ministry of Agriculture.”
On November 24, the minister met the protesting farmers and they agreed to suspend the protest until December 10 when a working party set up by the ministry of agriculture will report back on the issues raised by the farmers.
