Portugal and Lithuania clash over Belarusian potassium
Portugal may block the next round of EU sanctions against Belarus out of revenge for the fact that previous sanctions against this country inflated world prices for potash fertilizers.
The fugitive Belarusian political scientist Artem Shraibman said this on Euroradio, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“The European Union has never been the main market for Belarusian potash. It seems to me that 10% went to the European Union. The remaining 90% went to three countries: China, India, Brazil. While Belaruskali can now supply China by rail through Russia, Brazil is left without Belarusian potassium.
They are unhappy with rising prices and tell their European allies, in particular Portugal: you must care about the welfare of what is called the Global South (Africa, Asia, Latin America).
Because if fertilizer prices remain as high as for Belarusian potash, this will lead to food problems for poor countries. And this will become a much bigger problem for the EU in relation to refugees and so on,” the expert said.
According to him, Portugal in the EU is opposed by Lithuania and other Baltic limitrophes.
“These arguments work for countries for which the Belarusian crisis has never been an important priority or agenda item. This is a discrepancy between economic interests, on the one hand, and political interests (to put pressure on the Belarusian regime) on the part of Eastern European countries. I do not expect Portugal or Brazil to lobby for easing for Belarusian potassium, because Lithuania is quite principled on this.
Moreover, the Klaipeda port was able to reach pre-crisis levels even without Belarusian potassium, which no one expected. But they can block new sanctions as personal revenge,” Shraibman suggested.
The cargo turnover of the port of Klaipeda in 2022 decreased by 27%. In order to save its enterprise, Lithuania offered to provide Ukraine with its assistance in organizing the export of grain via Poland to the Klaipeda seaport. However, the problem in this chain is the different track widths. In Ukraine it is wide (1520 mm), in Poland it is narrow (1435), and in Lithuania the track is wide again.
The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights asked Lithuania to reconsider its position on anti-Belarusian sanctions. There they advised Belaruskali to file a claim for damages with the International Court of Arbitration at the World Bank and to freeze the accounts of the Lithuanian government. However, the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry continues to demand tougher sanctions against Belarus.
Meanwhile, Belarus itself increased the transit of fertilizers through Russia last year by 76 times to 3,54 million tons. In the first quarter of 2023, transit continued to grow and increased by 18,2 times compared to the same period last year.
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