The occupation of the building of the Ministry of Agriculture is ongoing, the ministry authorities are not taking any action, Władysław Serafin, chairman of the Agricultural Circles, told PAP on Wednesday. According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the arrangements adopted in Jasionka have been implemented to a significant extent.
- Representatives of the protesting farmers, who signed agreements with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in Jasionka on March 19, arrived at the Ministry of Agriculture on Tuesday afternoon for talks on the implementation of their demands.
- The conversations lasted until late at night.
- According to farmers, their demands are not being implemented; they announced a sit-in strike and stayed in the ministry building, at the same time demanding to talk to Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
The occupation of the building is still ongoing and no talks are being held – said the chairman of the Agricultural Circles, Władysław Serafin, on Wednesday. In his opinion, the ministry authorities are not taking any action. The protesting farmers did not decide on further steps.
The chairman of OPZZ Farmers and Agricultural Organizations, Sławomir Izdebski, previously spoke on RMF24 radio about the protests announced for April 4 in front of the offices of MPs and senators throughout Poland.
– We want farmers to go to MPs’ and senators’ offices to tell them what the problem is. Not all of them need to know agriculture, that’s understandable. However, their statements in the media are a distortion of reality. We will pay a polite, calm visit so that later in parliament they will know what interests they have to defend and so that they will not have the excuse that they did not know something or did not understand something, said Izdebski.
As the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development noted in a statement, after farmers’ protests and interventions by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, as well as the arrangements between Prime Minister Donald Tusk and the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission withdrew from many of the assumptions of the Green Deal. According to the ministry, “they should be accepted as satisfactory by the protesting farmers.”
The Ministry announced that the rules for activating aid for cereal producers have been adopted (cereal subsidies of PLN 200/t and PLN 300/t). The approval process is ongoing. The embargo on the import of cereals, corn, rapeseed, sunflower, flour, bran, meal and cake from Ukraine to Poland is maintained.
– Work is being carried out to maintain the agricultural tax level at the 2023 level – the announcement said.
The ministry explained that “due to the fact that the Ukrainian side announced that it would limit the transit of its agricultural products through Poland to a minimum from April to June this year, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development did not apply to suspend the transit of Ukrainian agricultural products through Poland.”
The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development notes that at the end of March, talks and consultations were held at the level of the ministers of agriculture of Poland and Ukraine, as well as representatives of agricultural associations of both parties. A meeting at the intergovernmental level was also held on March 28 this year.
Taking into account these actions, “it should be stated that the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development is implementing the demands and arrangements made with the representatives of the protesting farmers.” It was added that “a number of activities require many inter-ministerial arrangements and specific procedures, which extends the implementation of the arrangements.”
