Polish associations confirm strange behaviour of Polish official in negotiations with Kyiv

Representatives of Polish associations present at the talks between the government delegations of Ukraine and Poland on trade and transit confirm evidence of the strange behaviour of Michał Kołodziejczak, Deputy Minister of Agriculture.

As reported by Onet, one participant said the parties were already very close to a compromise when "suddenly there was an explosion from Michał."

He says that during the hours of the meeting, Kołodziejczak "constantly went out and came in" to  the meeting room, read something on his smartphone and "did anything but talk."

"When we were already moving towards the final of the negotiations, and Minister Siekierski (Polish Minister of Agriculture – ed.) briefly left the room, Michał suddenly attacked the representatives of the Ukrainian delegation, who, I should note, were very well prepared for this meeting. During the presentation, they showed how much grain was contracted and explained that they could not violate the contracts concluded a year ago.

They wanted Poland to allow the transit of these several hundred tonnes...These words, rather a request from Ukrainians for permission to transit through Poland, were the moment when the deputy minister launched an attack," the Onet quotes this meeting participant. 

"We know how Michał can behave, but for someone who met him for the first time, it could have been a shock...It looked bad because the thread of understanding was lost after Kolodzejczak's 'speech’. Of course, you need to present your arguments firmly, but you don't need to resort to aggression. I don't know if the meeting would have ended with an agreement, but the actions of the deputy minister did not bring us closer to it," another meeting participant commented. 

He added that the Polish associations spoke with Kołodziejczak about this episode after the talks and "hope that something will change".

At first, evidence about the strange behaviour of the Deputy Minister of Agriculture of Poland at the talks on Wednesday came from Ukrainian associations at the meeting (European Pravda cited them in the article Warsaw is escalating). 

Kolodzejczak, after the news broke, called words about his inappropriate behaviour an attempt to discredit him and exclude him from the negotiation process.