PM Morawiecki: we want EU to limit inflow of Ukrainian grain into bloc

Mounting anger in the countryside over the influx of Ukrainian grain poses a major headache for Poland's ruling nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party in an election year, as its conservative voter base mainly lives in rural areas and small towns.

"During the last European Council, I agreed with the Prime Ministers of several European Union countries, those that border Ukraine, that we would forward a letter to President Ursula von der Leyen, to the European Commission, demanding immediate action, immediate use of all instruments, all available procedures and regulations, to limit the impact of Ukrainian grain to the markets of Ukraine's neighbouring countries," Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told a news conference on Wednesday (March 29).

"We demand the use of all regulatory instruments - quotas, tariffs, which will limit or block the import of Ukrainian grain into Poland," he added.

The prime minister added Poland was ready to help take this grain and export it to Africa. "There you go. But we did not agree to this and we do not agree that this grain should be sold on the Polish market, on the Romanian market - the president and prime minister of Romania, with whom I spoke yesterday, had the same opinion - and destabilise our domestic markets," he stressed.

Ukraine, one of the world's largest grain exporters, has seen its Black Sea ports blocked since Russia invaded more than a year ago and has been forced to find alternative shipping routes through European Union states Poland and Romania.

But logistical bottlenecks mean large quantities of Ukrainian grains, which are cheaper than those produced in the European Union, have ended up in central European states, hurting prices and sales of local farmers.

Morawiecki spoke as Agriculture Minister Henryk Kowalczyk met with farmers representatives, who have dismissed government aid proposed so far as inadequate.

"Money is due for every hectare of grain, losses must be covered," said Michał Kołodziejczak, founder of the Agrounia group ahead of roundtable talks with the government. "There must be at least 6 billion zlotys ($1.39 billion) to cover these losses."

"I'm not going to leave unless there are good solutions here. The police will have to take us out," he stressed.

The figure cited by Kołodziejczak was ten times higher than the 600-million-zloty aid programme approved by the European Commission on Monday, which the government says will help compensate farmers for their losses.

Kowalczyk recently had to be escorted out of an agricultural fair in the central Polish city of Kielce after he was accosted by a crowd of angry farmers and had eggs thrown at him at another event.