Putin the only winner as Poland’s Tusk flounders over Ukraine border fight – POLITICO Europe

Russian grain producers recently boasted that they doubled their exports to the EU last year and are on course to reap another record harvest.

And Russia is using its prodigious exports to drive down international grain prices, which in turn has pushed prices in the EU to their lowest levels since 2020. That has made it less profitable for Polish farmers to sell their own grain. Instead of blaming Moscow, however, they have turned their anger on Kyiv.

In any case, an embargo on Russian goods just like the existing Ukrainian one, which was imposed by the previous Polish government but maintained when Tusk took over in December would do nothing to ease their situation because the amounts entering Poland are too small to cause market problems, according to Olipra, from Credit Agricole.

"This is a very short-term solution that puts out part of the fire, but let's not forget what the source of this fire is," he said, referring to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which exposed the extreme vulnerability of Poland's agricultural sector to foreign competition due to decades of political neglect and a lack of structural reforms.

Instead of letting the protesters direct their anger at Ukraine, Tusk and his government would be better off pursuing more pragmatic solutions, such as improving infrastructure and securing better contracts for farmers, according to Przemysaw Baejewski, an agricultural commodities broker at BST Brokers.

We are treating the situation by sticking on more Band-Aids, Baejewski wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

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Putin the only winner as Poland's Tusk flounders over Ukraine border fight - POLITICO Europe