Polish Prime Minister Tusk to meet with protesting farmers on Thursday: they will discuss farmers' problems and subsidies
Kyiv • UNN
Polish Prime Minister Tusk is to meet with protesting farmers on Thursday to discuss their concerns about EU rules on climate change and rising costs, as well as competition from Ukraine.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has promised to meet with the leaders of protesting farmers on Thursday. The meeting with the farmers will take place in Warsaw. Tusk said this during a press conference with journalists. His words are quoted by PAP, UNN reports.
I have called an agricultural summit in Warsaw for tomorrow... I will meet with the leaders of all the protesting groups. ... We have a very important problem. We are the most pro-Ukrainian nation when it comes to aid, but we have the biggest problems in Europe because of the war.
Details
He also said that the first tranche of funds from KPO should be paid to farmers in the coming days, possibly even tomorrow. It is about 1.5 billion euros.
The Prime Minister also stated that negotiations with the Ukrainian side are underway to completely close the border for trade in goods. However, he noted that this would be a temporary solution and "painful" for both sides.
The Prime Minister also admitted that Poland's possible withdrawal from the European Green Deal would mean that Poles would not receive direct subsidies.
Therefore, it is worth leaning forward and saying exactly what else we need to change in the Green Deal to reach a consensus at least among some member states to get what we want, but not to lose more than we gain. I will talk about all possible scenarios.
Context
Farmers across Poland have been protesting for weeks against the restrictions imposed on them by EU regulations aimed at combating climate change, as well as rising costs and what they say is unfair competition from outside the EU, particularly Ukraine.
