Polish premier calls for new EU sanctions on agri-products from Russia, Belarus

By Jo Harper

WARSAW (AA) - Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk called on Monday for EU sanctions on agricultural products from Russia and Belarus, local media reported.

Tusk said he will ask Polish parliamentary speaker Szymon Holownia today to put to a vote in parliament a resolution calling on the European Commission to impose sanctions on agricultural products from Russia and Belarus.

"This is both about making the sanctions related to Russia's attack on Ukraine more realistic and Belarus's cooperation in this attack, but also about more effective protection of the European, Polish and Lithuanian agricultural markets,” Tusk said in remarks after returning from Vilnius, where he met his Lithuanian counterpart Ingrida Szymonite.

He also spoke of "tensions resulting from the inflow of food and agricultural products both from Russia and Belarus and, thanks to the EC's (European Commission) decision, duty-free, from Ukraine."

Latvia recently imposed an embargo on products from Russia and Belarus, the first EU country to do so.

After the start of Russia’s war on Ukraine in February 2022, the EU slapped sanctions on Russia, but food products were excluded.

Holownia told reporters in Warsaw on Monday: “The main problem is Russian grain, which has influenced the European market. Russia, which colonized us with oil and gas, is now trying to do it with grain.”

Tusk's visit to Vilnius coincided with a farmers' protest on the Polish-Lithuanian border in Budzisko. Farmers protesting at the border believe Ukrainian grain goes to Lithuania and then, after changing documents, returns to Poland as an EU product. Vilnius denies these accusations.

Farmers protesting in Poland are demanding the abandoning of the EU Green Deal and sealing the border with Ukraine to prevent the import of cheap food and agricultural products to the Polish market.