Farmers have repeatedly blocked Poland’s eastern border over the past year in protest against food imports such as grain from the east, including from Ukraine.

Tusk told reporters in the Baltic Sea port of Gdansk, in the north of Poland, that the new terminal there will be at the disposal of the Polish state.

“It will not only perform commercial functions, but will be a safety device in the hands of the Polish state as part of protecting Polish interests and Polish farmers,” Tusk said.

Poland’s Deputy Minister of Infrastructure Arkadiusz Marchewka said that the entire investment would cost 500 million zloty (US$122.4 million).

The terminal’s trans-shipment capacity in 2026 will be and initial two million tonnes, which will then be increased to three million tonnes, Marchewka added.

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President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called on Wednesday for Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, Polish President Andrzej Duda and European Union officials to come to the Ukrainian-Polish border to discuss the protests by the farmers, who are angry over what they say is unfair competition from cheaper Ukrainian imports.

Zelenskiy made clear he wanted talks before Saturday’s second anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“I have agreed with the prime minister of Ukraine for a meeting between the two governments, which will take place in Warsaw on March 28, and I hope that by then technical talks will lead to a fruitful meeting,” Tusk told a press conference.

Asked by a reporter whether this meant he was not going to the border for talks, Tusk said he believed he had made himself clear. He offered no direct comment on Zelenskiy’s proposal.

Tusk also reiterated his support for Kyiv’s war effort and said Poland would include border crossings with Ukraine and certain sections of roads on a list of critical infrastructure to “ensure a 100% guarantee that military aid… reaches the Ukrainian side without delays”.

Ukraine did not immediately comment on Tusk’s remarks about the March meeting, but its foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, later announced he had held talks with Polish officials in Warsaw on Thursday.

“Both governments are aiming to resolve problematic issues,” Kuleba said on the social media platform X, where he also thanked Tusk for his efforts to ensure unhindered deliveries of military aid to Ukraine.

Separately, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov told Ukrainska Pravda that Kyiv was ready for “any format” of talks to help end the border blockades.

Balancing act

Polish farmers have broad public support for their protests over high costs, cheap food imports and EU climate policies. This leaves Tusk with a difficult balancing act as he tries to maintain Warsaw’s staunch support for Kyiv in its fight against Russian invaders while addressing the farmers’ grievances.

Kyiv has said the farmer protests, which have included repeated blockades of border crossings with Ukraine, are damaging its fight to repel Russia.

Farmers continued to demonstrate across Poland on Thursday but on a smaller scale than on Tuesday.

Adrian Wawrzyniak, a spokesperson for the Solidarity farmers’ union, said protesters were blocking three crossings with Ukraine although some trucks were being let through. He also said a bridge linking Poland to the Czech Republic was being blocked, as were several roads around the country.

Farmers from the Czech Republic and other central European countries also protested on Thursday along Czech borders, blocking some crossings as they demanded changes to EU policies.

–Reporting for Reuters by Alan Charlish, Pawel Florkiewicz, Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk, Additional reporting by Olena Harmash and Pavel Polityuk in Kyiv.

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Failure to resume exports into eastern European countries or secure an extension of the Black Sea grain deal would trap large amounts of grain in Ukraine, hitting its exports and causing further economic problems for Kyiv as it battles Russian troops.

European Union member states Poland, Hungary and Slovakia had imposed import bans to protect their markets from an influx of cheaper supply following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and Warsaw banned their transit through Poland at the weekend.

But Polish Agriculture Minister Robert Telus said a second day of talks in Warsaw had produced a breakthrough, with transit to be monitored and sealed. The deal will go into force at midnight on Friday, Development Minister Waldemar Buda said.

“We were forced to close the border because the EU had its eyes closed on large amounts of grain flowing into Poland, but at the same time we continued talks with Ukraine on how to enable transits, but with a guarantee grains would not be stuck in Poland, and we managed to find a solution,” Telus told a news conference in Warsaw.

Ukrainian First Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko told the news conference she was confident Ukrainian exporters would respect the terms of the deal agreed with Poland.

It was not immediately clear how the other countries that have imposed import bans on Ukraine would react after the agreement in Warsaw, with Romania looking likely earlier on Tuesday to impose a similar ban.

Large quantities of Ukrainian grain have been trapped by bottlenecks in eastern and central Europe as low global prices and demand mean grain cannot easily be sold on.

The bottlenecks have reduced prices and hurt sales by local farmers, putting political pressure on governments in the region, particularly the Polish government before an election.

The EU has criticized member states for putting individual bans in place, and EU envoys are set to discuss the measures on Wednesday, a senior EU official said.

Bulgaria has also been considering a ban. The Czech Republic has said it will not impose a ban on its own but wants an EU solution.

Black Sea grain deal in doubt

Ukraine, which relies on grain and food sales for a significant slice of its gross domestic product, also has concerns about the Black Sea Grain Initiative brokered between Moscow and Kyiv by Turkey and the United Nations last July.

The initiative, intended to alleviate global food shortages by allowing exports to resume from three ports that had been blockaded in Ukraine, is set to expire on May 18.

It is unclear whether it will be extended because Russia says a separate deal meant to ease its own agricultural and fertilizer exports has not been upheld.

“It is under threat of being halted and Russia has again blocked the inspection of ships,” Svyrydenko told the news conference in Warsaw.

“It is extremely important for us to unblock transit, otherwise Ukraine will remain blocked. We cannot together with our partners give Russia the opportunity to take advantage of this situation,” she said.

Russian news agency RIA said on Tuesday the inspections had restarted but a senior Ukrainian official told Reuters: “Nothing has been resolved.”

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said there had been no ship inspections on Monday or Tuesday.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will discuss the Ukraine Black Sea grain export deal with U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in New York next week, Russia’s U.N. envoy said on Tuesday.

— Reporting for Reuters by Pawel Florkiewicz and Anna Koper in Warsaw, Luiza Ilie in Bucharest, Krisztina Than in Budapest, Pavel Polityuk in Kyiv, Humeyra Pamuk in Tokyo and Michelle Nichols at the United Nations; writing by Timothy Heritage.

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The heat is mounting on Brussels to work out a European Union wide solution after Warsaw and Budapest announced bans on some imports from Ukraine at the weekend, with other countries in eastern Europe saying they are also considering action.

Farmers say imports from Ukraine have lowered prices and reduced their sales. In Poland, the issue has created a problem in an election year for the ruling nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party that relies on rural areas for much of its support.

“Ukraine needs help, but the costs of this help should be spread over all European countries, not just the frontline countries, especially Poland. We do not agree to this, because it harms our farmers,” Polish agriculture minister Robert Telus said after talks that began in Warsaw on Monday.

Kyiv said it aims to re-open food and grain transit via Poland as “a first step” to ending import bans, but Telus said that no solution had so far been found to guarantee that the grain in transit would not end up on the local market.

Some Black Sea ports were blocked after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began last year and logistical bottlenecks trapped large quantities of Ukrainian grain, which is cheaper than that produced in the EU, in central European countries.

The Polish, Hungarian and Slovakian export and transit bans come as a deal to allow the export of millions of tonnes of Ukrainian grain via the Black Sea, despite the Ukraine war, nears its May 18 expiry. Meanwhile, Russian demands have left the prospect of an extension of this deal uncertain.

The combined impact of the bans and failure to agree an extension would strand millions of tonnes of grain inside Ukraine, a major agricultural producer that makes a substantial part of its gross domestic product from food sales.

“The first step … should be the opening of transit, because it is quite important and it is the thing that should be done unconditionally and after that we will talk about other things,” Ukrainian Agriculture Minister Mykola Solsky said before the talks in Warsaw.

To prevent any grain entering its market, Poland’s ban also covered transit through the country, which imported 2.45 million tonnes of grain, or three quarters of total imports, from Ukraine in 2022, Polish agriculture ministry data showed.

The bans have left truck drivers stranded for several days in long traffic jams on the border baffled.

“We can’t go in either direction. Yes, the Poles reached out to us, I’m very thankful to them. I’m immensely grateful, the whole of Ukraine is, the whole world even. But now, Poland doesn’t let (us) in for some reason,” Mykola Bervin, a driver from Zhytomyr in Ukraine, told Reuters.

Bervin said he had been stuck for three days and the tailback was more than 25 kilometres long.

EU action ‘inevitable’

Slovakia approved halting imports indefinitely following Poland’s move, although it maintained transit, while the BTA news agency reported that Bulgaria’s agriculture minister also said the country could limit imports.

Istvan Nagy, Hungary’s farm minister, said a solution was needed beyond the national level, calling eventual EU measures inevitable. The Czech Republic also urged an EU-wide solution while saying it would not introduce a ban itself for now.

Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia raised the issue with the European Commission last month, saying tariffs on Ukrainian imports should be considered, while states have also pushed for an EU purchase mechanism to buy up cheap grain.

Telus said that six countries would like to meet with the EU commissioner responsible for trade to find a solution.

A senior EU official said EU envoys would discuss Poland and Hungary’s bans on Wednesday – after the bloc’s executive said on Sunday that unilateral action was unacceptable.

The official said low global prices and demand meant grain was staying in the bloc rather than being sold on.

— Reporting by Pavel Polityuk in Kyiv, Andriy Perun in Rava-Ruska and Pawel Florkiewicz and Anna Koper in Warsaw, Gabriela Baczynska in Brussels, Boldizsar Gyori in Budapest, and Jan Lopatka in Prague; writing by Tom Balmforth, Jason Hovet and Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk.

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