Angry Polish farmers protest against EU rules, Ukraine farm imports
Al Jazeera
Throwing smoke bombs and lighting fires, thousands of angry farmers demonstrated in Warsaw against European Union regulations and cheap Ukraine imports, with police reporting that two officers had been injured and a dozen protesters arrested.
Some demonstrators on Wednesday tried to force their way past security railings onto parliament grounds, according to police. Farmers also organised tractor blockades on roads across the country.
Polish farmers have been blocking border crossings with Ukraine since last month to protest against what they say is unfair competition from goods entering from Ukraine.
Ukraine has seen its agriculture sector crippled by Russia’s invasion in 2022. Many of its major export routes through the Black Sea have been blocked and its farmland rendered unusable by warfare.
In a bid to help Kyiv economically, the EU in 2022 scrapped tariffs on Ukrainian goods transiting the 27-nation bloc by road.
