12 Sep, 2023
We won’t let Ukrainian grain in – Polish PM
Mateusz Morawiecki has insisted Warsaw will reject any demand the product be sold in the country
Warsaw will not allow Ukrainian grain to “flood” the Polish market, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has vowed ahead of deliberations in the EU on whether to extend an existing trade restriction.
The government puts the interests of Polish farmers first and will not allow cheap Ukrainian products to disrupt the domestic agriculture industry again, Morawiecki declared in a video address posted on social media on Tuesday.
“The EU is now considering whether to maintain the embargo. I’ll tell you how it ends. Poland will not allow Ukrainian grain to flood us. Regardless of what the decision of Brussels officials will be, we will not open the border,” he declared.
The European Parliament is set to debate on Friday the expiration of the EU’s ban on importing Ukrainian grain into five Eastern European members of the bloc. The measure was imposed in May, de facto legitimizing national prohibitions by Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Slovakia.
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has stated that failure by the EU to lift the ban as Kiev was promised would be a betrayal of “European values.” In such a case, the Ukrainian government intends to seek arbitration in international organizations, he said last week.
Kiev has reportedly chosen theWorld Trade Organization (WTO)as the venue for any potential legal battle with Brussels. Polish Minister for EU Affairs Szymon Szynkowski vel Sek has described Kiev’s position as “a threat” that goes “beyond the certain boundaries of classical diplomacy.”
Brussels lifted quotas and tariffs from Ukrainian exports in the early weeks of Kiev’s armed conflict with Moscow in a bid to support the Zelensky government. The policy backfired on Eastern European nations, however, which faced mass protests by local farmers.
The EU’s ban had shut the markets of the five nations to Ukrainian wheat, corn, sunflower seeds and rapeseed, but allowed transit of the goods to continue. However transportation costs cut into the profits of the firms that own Ukrainian farms.
According to an Oakland Institute study* released in February, Ukrainian farmlands are predominantly controlled by “foreign interests” either directly or through foreign-registered companies run by local oligarchs.
(see attached Oakland Institute study report and snippets below.Anons , this fight is going to be a big deal. Poland, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Slovakia, placed a sweeping ban on the import of Ukrainian grain. See below that the farmlands controlled by Oligarchs, Business’s, Wealth Funds etc., so Ukraine selling their grains less year for dramatically lower rates than domestic grains, not to mention Ukraine’s grains had toxic levels of pesticides. )
War and Theft: The Takeover of Ukraine’s Agricultural Land
Oakland Institute
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
… This includes the highly controversial land reform that took place in 2021 as part of the structural adjustment program initiated under the auspices of Western financial institutions, after the installation of a pro-European
Union (EU) government following the Maidan Revolution in 2014.
In addition, according to the government, about five million hectares – the size of two Crimea – have been “stolen” by private interests from the state of Ukraine.3 The total amount of land controlled by oligarchs, corrupt individuals, and large agribusinesses is thus over nine million hectares, '''exceeding
28 percent of the country’s arable land'''. The rest is used by over eight million Ukrainian farmers.4
The largest landholders are a mix of oligarchs and a variety of foreign interests – mostly European and North American, including a US-based private equity fund and the sovereign fund of Saudi Arabia. All but one of the ten largest landholding firms are registered overseas, mainly in tax havens such as Cyprus or Luxembourg.
The report identifies many prominent investors, including Vanguard Group, Kopernik Global Investors, BNP Asset Management Holding, Goldman Sachs-owned NN Investment Partners Holdings, and Norges Bank Investment Management, which manages Norway’s sovereign wealth fund. A number of large US pension funds, foundations, and university endowments are also invested in Ukrainian land through NCH Capital – a US-based private equity fund, which is the fifth largest landholder in the country. Most of these firms are substantially indebted to Western financial institutions, in particular the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the European Investment Bank (EIB), and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) – the private sector arm of the World Bank.
https://reliefweb.int/report/ukraine/war-and-theft-takeover-ukraines-agricultural-land
https://www.rt.com/news/582824-poland-ukrainian-grain-ban/