Anna Fotiga, Member of the European Parliament and Secretary General of the Party of European Conservatives and Reformists, proposed creating an “agrarian Ramstein” on the model of the International Contact Group on Defense Assistance to Ukraine, the first meeting of which took place at the American military base Ramstein in Germany.
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She said this during her stay in Washington in an interview with Voice of America.
Like the defense group, which contains more members than NATO, the “agricultural Ramstein” also included willing from different regions of the world, exporters and importers, who would jointly solve the main problems due to shortages or surpluses of agricultural products in different markets of the world.
Let us remind you that Polish farmers blame grain imports from Ukraine for the fall in prices. In large-scale protests in February-March 2-24, they also demand that their government withdraw from the EU Green Deal.
Strikes by Polish farmers on the border with Ukraine began in November last year, and since February 20, Polish farmers have blocked the movement of trucks from Ukraine at six checkpoints, later partially allowing movement through one of them.
The scope and scale of this problem exceeds the EU’s ability to solve it. It’s bigger, it’s global, it’s huge,” says Fotiga.
According to her, the reason for this was the fact that Russia ousted Ukraine from traditional grain supply markets, such as China and India.
According to the Ministry of Economy, agricultural products worth $27.7 billion were exported in 2021 (40.7% of total goods exports). The largest importers of Ukrainian agricultural goods were China, India, the Netherlands, Egypt and Turkey.
The EU, for its part, opened access to Ukrainian agricultural products at one point, without calculating the consequences, she believes.
Normally, in times of peace, negotiations between the EU and Ukraine on agriculture, changes, modifications on both sides, would probably last longer than all EU accession negotiations, since there are huge structural differences. We decided to open markets because of the war and the desire to help Ukraine. But I don’t think we understood the scale of the problem, she says.
Deputy Minister of Agriculture of Poland Michal Kolodziejczak said in an interview with PAP that Ukrainian grain, rapeseed and corn do not remain in Poland, but pass through in transit. Kolodziejczak nevertheless suggested that a certain amount of Ukrainian grain could arrive in Poland from Germany, where there is no embargo on these Ukrainian supplies.
Source: Racurs
I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.