Poland has reached an agreement with Ukraine to resume transit of Ukrainian grain
Poland has reached an agreement with Ukraine on resuming the transit of Ukrainian grain, with shipments to be sealed at the border and monitored throughout their journey on Polish territory, including by GPS, Polish Agriculture Minister Robert Telus announced, according to Digi24.
"We have managed to create mechanisms that will ensure that not a single tonne of (Ukrainian) grain will remain in Poland," the Polish official said, adding that the transit of Ukrainian grain and other food products will resume from Friday, Reuters reports.
The ban on imports of Ukrainian grain and other foodstuffs into Poland remains in place, however, said another Polish minister, Waldemar Buda, who holds the development portfolio.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian First Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Sviridenko assured that Ukrainian exporters will respect the agreement agreed with Poland on the transit of Ukrainian grain. Speaking at a joint press conference in Warsaw with Polish officials, she added that the government in Kiev understands the concerns of farmers and wants to resolve the problem.
To help Ukraine after Russia's war against the country last February, the EU suspended tariffs and other trade defence measures on imports of Ukrainian grain and other food products, without requiring them to meet European quality standards.
The prime ministers of Bulgaria, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Hungary have complained to the European Commission about the distortions caused by oversupply and collapsing prices in their markets.
In a letter to European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen in March, the five prime ministers said the EU should reintroduce tariffs on Ukrainian agricultural products if the influx could not be stopped by other means.
Despite this letter, Brussels recently extended liberalisation of imports of Ukrainian agri-food products until June 2024. Therefore, in order to protect their agricultural sector, Poland and Hungary last week banned imports of these Ukrainian products.
After discovering a shipment of Ukrainian wheat contaminated with pesticides banned in the EU, Slovakia on Friday banned the import of wheat from Ukraine and on Monday extended the ban to all Ukrainian grain and a range of other food products.
On Sunday, Poland announced that it was also banning the transit of Ukrainian grain and food products until measures are agreed with Ukraine to ensure that these products destined for third countries only transit Poland and do not remain in the country.
The Polish government referred to the so-called "solidarity corridors" for Ukrainian grain exports by land, also agreed within the EU to help Ukraine export its grain to third countries, but large quantities of Ukrainian grain originally destined for third countries and transported via these corridors remained on the markets of Central and Eastern European countries which were supposed to be transit routes only.
To prevent such situations from happening from now on, Hungary announced earlier on Tuesday that Ukrainian grain shipments would be sealed at the country's entry and monitored.
