Protests continue across Europe over the EU's Green Deal and tariff exemption for Ukrainian grain, with farmers taking to the streets day after day. Sometimes they block busy roads with their tractors, sometimes they pour manure in front of government offices, writes the international V4NA news agency.
Farmers press for guarantees to ensure that agriculture remains viable in Europe. They also demand a laxer reporting and regulatory regime and call on Brussels to discontinue making free trade agreements with non-EU countries. In this context, conservative Polish MEP Jacek Saryusz-Wolski said that
the institutions in Brussels use a form of moral blackmail when they say that in order to help Ukraine, the EU must open its borders to tariff-free imports of agricultural products. In reality, Ukraine needs more ammunition and money, which the EU is unable or unwilling to supply.
Saryusz-Wolski added that Brussels' institutions are not protecting European farmers and are strangling those on NATO's eastern flank in particular.
According to the MEP, money from Ukrainian agricultural exports does not go to support Ukraine's budget or its war effort, but ends up in the pockets of Ukrainian oligarchs or Western multinational companies, often registered in tax havens.
What is at stake, the politician believes, is in fact the dismantling of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), even though the main aim of the project has always been to ensure food security for all of Europe by making the continent self-sufficient in food.
Today, however, the Brussels mainstream, as well as the industrial and financial lobbies, especially those of Germany, want to move away from the original paradigm in order to do away with the need for funding,
– said Saryusz-Wolski, who also pointed out that imports of agricultural products from Ukraine and South America could replace food production in Western and Central Europe in the future, and that the issue of aid to Ukraine is just an excuse in order to stop supporting EU agriculture.
Cover photo: European farmers stage regular protests paralyzing Brussels (Photo: AFP/Kenzo Tribouillard)
