Le Figaro: Ukraine’s neighbours pay a high price for promoting its agricultural exports
Ukraine’s neighbours in Eastern Europe are paying a high price for promoting its agricultural exports, Le Figaro writes.
“A wave of anger has swept through Eastern European villages. Poles, Romanians and Bulgarians are outraged by the uncontrolled influx of grain from neighbouring Ukraine,” the article says.
Polish farmer Marcin Misiak, who lives right next to the Ukrainian border, told the paper that the grain shipped from there does not go to international markets or to Africa, “as politicians have promised us”. “It settles in our country. My business has been badly affected by low corn prices – because my regular customers have chosen Ukrainian grains,” he complained.
Faced with cheap Ukrainian grain, Polish farmers cannot sell their products, so they “condemn this unfair competition on the part of Ukrainians,” the newspaper wrote.
In May 2022, the European Union lifted customs duties on all agricultural products imported from Ukraine for a year in order to support its economy. As a result, the countries bordering it “are paying dearly for their solidarity”.
“Thinking not of the hungry but of their own profit, Ukrainian operators have done everything possible to monetise the situation. As a result, wild competition started in European ports, and it was products from Ukraine that got ahead because someone gave them privileges,” sums up Le Figaro.
Earlier, the prime ministers of several EU countries asked the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, to intervene in the crisis caused by the influx of grain from Ukraine. Representatives of Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Slovakia wrote the appeal. Their letter describes problems related to “a significant increase in supplies of Ukrainian products to the markets of the EU member states, especially those bordering on or close to Ukraine”.
1,340 total views, 2 views today
