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Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk is maintaining the protectionist stance of the previous government and is set to oppose the renewal of an EU free-trade deal with Ukraine.
The European Commission is expected to propose extending until June 2025 the suspension of tariffs and import quotas on Ukrainian products in a bid to help keep the country’s economy afloat while it continues to fight against Russia’s invasion. Poland’s stance will not affect the outcome, as the decision is taken by majority voting.
But Tusk sticking to a policy introduced by the nationalist, Eurosceptic government led by the Law and Justice (PiS) party stands in contrast to his pledge when he took office last month to put Poland back at the heart of EU policymaking after years of feuding with Brussels.
It highlights the difficulty for the Polish premier to strike a balance between his pro-European agenda and the interests of farmers and hauliers who want to maintain import bans and have been blockading the country’s border crossings with Ukraine since November in order to force the government to back their demands.
PiS has also launched a significant backlash, supported by the country’s president, to any attempts by Tusk to undo reforms and appointments made by the previous government.
Tusk is preparing to visit Kyiv in the coming days to try to ease tensions provoked by the border blockade and to reach a compromise on the import ban the PiS government imposed last spring on Ukrainian grain. He has called on Ukraine to help defuse tensions with Polish farmers and truck drivers rather than demand that Poland lifts its import ban.
Poland’s deputy agriculture minister Michał Kołodziejczak warned at the weekend that “there is no consent” from his government to the EU renewing preferential trade conditions for Ukraine because that is “a threat” for Polish farmers. “The interest of Polish farmers, our food security and profitable production are a priority,” Kołodziejczak said on the social platform X.
The commission is considering a tougher safeguard clause that would allow exports to be stopped quickly if they swamped the market in some member states.
Tusk is seeking a similar deal to the one struck with Romania and Bulgaria. They lifted a blockade last year in return for Ukraine agreeing an export licensing system which limited the flow into their countries.
“The bulk of the work is in the dialogue between the two capitals [Warsaw and Kyiv],” said an EU diplomat.
Since taking office, Tusk has also shied away from ordering Polish police and border guards to break up the blockade. Echoing farmers, Polish truckers are complaining about cheaper and unregulated competition from Ukraine under a temporary free transport agreement with Brussels agreed four months after Russia’s all-out attack on Kyiv in February 2022.
According to Polish government data, about 90 per cent of trucks delivering to Poland from Ukraine are Ukrainian, up from 60 per cent before the liberalisation.
Tusk said on Friday that Poland would continue to give Ukraine full support in its war against Russia, but he also pledged to defend key Polish economic sectors against unfair competition.
He called on Kyiv to help stop “the game of dirty interests” in cross-border trade, repeating a claim made by PiS that the EU’s help to Ukraine’s agriculture was a boost for oligarchs who control the sector rather than small farmers.
“I’ll expect the Ukrainian side to help us cure these pathologies so that our farmers and hauliers do not have to block the borders,” he said during an interview with Poland’s three main broadcasters.
