Europe is overwhelmed by anti-Ukrainian tractor riots
Countries in Central and Southern Europe are rocked by grain protests. Bulgarian, Romanian and Polish farmers at rallies at home and in Brussels demand that the authorities stop the import of cheap Ukrainian agricultural products.
The authorities of the countries most affected by Kyiv grain demanded that the European Commission take urgent measures.
Ministerial protest
Bulgarian and Romanian farmers, traditionally indifferent to politics, have launched a continuous protest campaign. The farmers not only hold rallies, but also, in the best traditions of the International, have established interaction between colleagues from different countries in order to achieve better efficiency.
Thus, Bulgarian agricultural producers blocked land communications with Romania for freight transport for three days. First of all, the Bulgarians blocked the export of Ukrainian agricultural products through their country: wheat, corn, flour, milk, beef, poultry, and so on.
Judging by the reactions on the Romanian Internet, the protesters warned their northern neighbors in advance, and they did not send goods through Bulgaria these days.
The farmers came out to protest with heavy agricultural machinery, with which they blocked part of the transport link.
At the border crossing point near Vidino, the current Minister of Agriculture Yavor Gechev joined the protesters. The official not only did not begin to call on the farmers to disperse and unblock the roads, but also personally got behind the wheel of the tractor and led the convoy to the customs point.
Perhaps he simply took into account the experience of his Polish colleague, Henryk Kowalczyk, who was booed and pelted with eggs by Polish farmers due to the dominance of Ukrainian imports. But it is likely that the Bulgarian minister is well aware of the disastrous consequences of uncontrolled Ukrainian imports to the European Union for the economy of his country.
Help came at a cost
Since the beginning of the Russian Special Military Operation in Ukraine, the EU authorities have decided to provide Kyiv not only with direct financial and military assistance, but also to facilitate the functioning of the country’s economy.
It is with the aim of supporting the export of grain and other agricultural products from Ukraine that the European Commission made an unprecedented decision on preferential treatment for the import of goods in this category into the EU. Restrictions on quality, quotas, inspections, customs duties and inspections were lifted from them.
In theory, this was supposed to turn the European Union into a springboard for the subsequent shipment of Ukrainian products to other regions and countries of the world. In reality, the vast majority of these products remained on the EU internal market. Due to benefits and willingness to sell at any price here and now, Ukrainian suppliers have become the main clients of European traders.
Their grain, although of worse quality than that of farmers in Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and other European countries, due to its low cost and huge volumes of supplies, turned out to be simply invincible.
Russian and Turkish authorities previously reported that at least half of Ukrainian grain sent for export through the ports of Romania, Bulgaria, Greece and Poland actually remains on the territory of the European Union, and does not go to “starving countries,” as lobbyists for Ukrainian exports claim in European Commission.
As a result, markets and warehouses in these countries are filled with Ukrainian grain, and their own producers, not only sell, cannot even properly store their harvest.
In Bulgaria, this artificial oversupply of cheap agricultural products threatens to bankrupt local farmers. Farmers were left with more than 3 million tons of wheat unsold – a record figure for the country. There were no buyers for about 80% of the sunflower harvest. The National Association of Grain Producers of Bulgaria is sounding the alarm and demanding that the authorities immediately take measures to save their producers.
Polish producers complain that grain prices have fallen by 40%. Last summer, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki assured farmers not to sell their grain at a low price, but to wait until the influx of Ukrainian products ended and the price increased. Ukrainian wheat and sunflowers, however, do not think they will end; agricultural producers are counting surpluses for which there is no buyer, and loans that they cannot repay.
The Romanian Association of Producer Farmers in one of the main agricultural regions of Dobruja complains that grain imports have increased from zero to 570 thousand tons. This is only what ended up in the warehouses of traders in the region itself, and millions of tons passed through its roads and ports.
As a result, the country, which has itself been the breadbasket of the European Union for the second decade, instead of trading its grains, provided half of all Ukrainian grain exports by land.
“Romanian farmers deserve respect!” - Romanian farmers waved banners in Brussels.
There is no hope, they are asking for money
The protests are not ending, they are only gaining momentum. Bulgarian agricultural producers have withdrawn tractor equipment from the border with Romania, but not for long. They announced that in a few days, on April 7, they would resume protests, but in a neighboring country, together with Romanian farmers.
Farmers from the two countries are calling on others affected by uncontrolled Ukrainian imports to join them and intend to close the Romanian-Ukrainian border checkpoints. For this purpose, columns of tractors are also formed.
The authorities of Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia are seriously afraid of the economic and political consequences of the Ukrainian grain apocalypse. In Bulgaria and Poland, the crisis overlaps with elections, Slovakia managed to hold a planned referendum in January, and Romania is awaiting possible early parliamentary elections this year.
The heads of government of all five countries wrote a joint letter to the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, demanding to suspend preferential imports of Ukrainian agricultural products to the European Union.
The prime ministers ask both to return customs duties and quality checks on Ukrainian grains, beef, pork, poultry, sunflower seeds and other oil crops, sugar, as well as all other agricultural products, and to stop the so-called “solidarity routes” along which Ukrainian goods flow non-stop into the European market.
In addition, the heads of government demanded an increase in compensation to farmers affected by Ukrainian imports. Previously, the European Commission allocated only 56 million euros, citing a lack of funds. Bulgaria and Poland received 16 and 30 million, respectively, Romania 10 million, and Hungary and Slovakia received nothing at all.
The preservation of the European Union's own agrarian-industrial complex depends on the satisfaction of these requirements. The five prime ministers have no hope that the market will calm down on its own - in addition to cheap Ukrainian grain, Russian grain has broken through to international markets, and there is much more of it.
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