The Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal discussed with his Polish counterpart Donald Tusk five specific steps to unblock the border, which include certain restrictions on agricultural exports, the creation of an anti-crisis headquarters, and the European Commission's analysis of legislation in agricultural policy and transport. This was stated by Denys Shmyhal during a briefing, UNN reports.
"Today, Ukrainian grain does not enter the Polish market. Our government has introduced a verification procedure for 4 Ukrainian agricultural crops: corn, rapeseed, sunflower and wheat. No exports of these categories can be made without a license. We are not issuing such permits now. We will issue them only upon joint agreement with the Polish government, and accordingly, this is the first element of our cooperation and the first step on our part," Shmyhal said.
He noted that the governments of Ukraine and Poland are working on five specific steps.
"I have already mentioned the first one. Ukraine has agreed to certain restrictions, including the safeguards proposed by the European Commission. This is not a very interesting story for us, but we understand that this is the compromise that is necessary for our countries so that agricultural exports from Ukraine do not harm or threaten Polish agricultural products," Shmyhal said.
The second step is that Ukraine has asked the European Commission to conduct an urgent analysis of legislation in agricultural policy and transport.
"We are open, we want to remove any manipulations, myths, disinformation used by our enemy, Russia, in a hybrid way. We have a decision of the European Commission on the priority screening of the section on agricultural policy. We expect this to happen at the end of April," Shmyhal said.
According to Shmyhal, the third step is to ban Russian and Belarusian agricultural exports to the EU.
"We offered Poland to join our efforts to accomplish this task (...) Our voice was heard in Brussels. The European Commission has proposed a 50% increase in duties on agricultural products from Russia and Belarus, including grain imports. The new rates should effectively stop this trade. We expect this decision to be adopted by the EU Council in the near future," the Prime Minister emphasized.
The fourth step involves the creation of an anti-crisis headquarters for the export and transit of Ukrainian agricultural products.
"We have already established regular interaction between our ministers of agriculture and economy. Yesterday, we also involved associations in this cooperation. The dialog is extremely frank, extremely pragmatic and very honest. There is active communication in Brussels within the framework of the joint coordination platform on exports and transit of Ukrainian agricultural products, and the last meeting showed the parties' readiness to develop joint solutions," Shmyhal said.
The last step will involve resolving the issue of allowing not only ammunition and humanitarian aid to enter Ukraine, but also fuel.
"We asked for free passage across the border not only of ammunition and humanitarian aid, but also of fuel. This is important because it is directly related to national security issues. I hope that this will lead to the unblocking of the border," summarized Shmyhal.
Recall
The governments of Ukraine and Poland are making progress in lifting the blockade on the Polish-Ukrainian border. The plan to de-block the border is being implemented, but not as fast as we would like, but there are positive trends that are important to maintain and move forward.