Donald Tusk probably thought the worst was behind him. Just last month, Polish truckers suspended the months-long blockade of the Polish-Ukrainian border they had staged with the help of Polish farmers since November. The chaos, it seemed, was over — and then it wasn’t. Today, Poland finds itself not only on the eve of yet another border blockade, but also at the epicentre of a continent-wide Peasants’ Revolt, with tens of thousands of European rustics following suit.
With Poland’s farmers once again demonstrating against EU rules favouring Ukrainian food imports, Tusk has responded in a manner hardly suited to a princeling of the EU. In the short-term, to keep the peace with Europe and Ukraine, he has promised to find solutions to farmers’ grievances within existing EU regulations. But more broadly, and quite unexpectedly, he has chosen to keep in place import bans on Ukrainian grain implemented by his Right-wing, Eurosceptic predecessors. He has also said he will oppose an extension of the EU’s free trade deal with Ukraine that has driven many farmers and truckers to despair, and his government recently announced tighter controls on imported goods at the Ukrainian border.
It seems, then, that Poland’s new protectionism is here to stay, as is the influence of its rural populist movement. While solidarity with Ukraine remains strong in the country, the impact of the war on Poland’s fragile agricultural sector has grown too large to ignore — footage has already emerged allegedly showing Polish farmers angrily dumping grain from Ukrainian trucks at one border crossing. Tusk’s government has taken note, and is striking a careful balance between its vital security relationship with Ukraine and the interests of its constituents.
Despite making pledges during the election campaign last year to differentiate himself politically from his predecessors, Tusk has to show that on some matters, he too can play the nationalist — and can also take the fight to Brussels on issues that matter for everyday Poles. Crucially, one often overlooked reality for Tusk is that he sits at the head of a diverse coalition in Poland’s Parliament that includes not only centrists and leftists, but also somewhat more conservative parties and agrarian movements that are critical for his ability to govern. Whether he’s accommodating these protectionist concerns out of genuine concern for farmers, out of a desire to save face politically, or in the interest of placating his own coalition remains unclear, but his position in the wake of these protests is a clear break from the norm for someone who was once widely seen as the face of the EU establishment itself. This is, in other words, the moment to prove his worth.
And it’s been a long time coming. Today’s protests have their roots in last year’s Polish grain crisis. In spring, the EU struck a deal with Poland allowing for Ukrainian grain to be transported through the country but not introduced into the marketplace. When that deal expired in September, Poland’s previous government introduced an import ban on cheap Ukrainian wheat and maize in order to protect Polish farmers from collapses in grain prices. But farmers felt this didn’t go far enough. In November, they joined forces with disgruntled Polish truckers and blockaded the Ukraine border, complaining of the market threat posed by other imported Ukrainian food products and agitating for agricultural subsidies and favourable taxes.
Meanwhile, during last year’s bitter election campaign, Poland’s populist government drummed up nationalist concerns about the Ukraine war’s impact on the Polish market. Nor did it help that the Ukrainian side escalated the situation further, suing Poland and several of its neighbours in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) for their import bans.
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