Why Polish farmers agreed to unblock border with Ukraine
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk a couple of days ago called on protesting farmers to stop blocking the Ukrainian-Polish border.
Calls to stop the blockade have been made many times before, although not directly from him. But it is significant that this time everything went differently: the people who were blocking the border began to dismantle their protests. There was hope for an improvement.
Read more about what is going on with the Polish border blockade in the article by Stanislav Zhelikhovsky, PhD in political science and international expert – The end of border blockade? How Donald Tusk convinced Polish farmers.
"I want to appeal to everyone in Poland without exception [and ask] not to do anything that could harm Ukraine... We must make decisions that will protect the Polish border and border crossings," said Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk on 18 April.
He also emphasised that the Polish government cannot allow the blocking of crossings, regardless of the justification the protests have. According to Tusk, Poland cannot afford to "harm Ukraine in any way at a time when the fate of the war is being decided."
The Prime Minister also reminded that border crossings, according to the government's latest decision, have critical infrastructure status and that the government is ready to provide further assistance to farmers who have lost some of their income.
Indeed, the situation in Ukraine is alarming. Russia continues to launch attacks with the risk of resuming offensive, but in this sense, little has changed compared to several months ago.
Another circumstance makes the coming months truly special.
It is about Poland's role as a transit hub for supplies to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
After the approval of the long-awaited aid bill by Congress and its signing on 24 April by President Biden, the necessary weapons are supposed to start arriving to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The bulk of them, as they say, have already been in warehouses in Poland and Germany, awaiting legislative approval. And these are really significant volumes, evidenced by the billion-dollar aid package, supposed to be delivered soon.
So there are all reasons not to rule out that this became the reason for Tusk's appeal to the farmers to unblock the border.
On 18 April, on the same day when the Prime Minister of Poland made his statement, the farmers again blocked the border crossings with Ukraine in the Subcarpathian and Lublin Voivodeships. This protest had the status of "preventive" and was announced for 48 hours.
But if previously such "preventive" actions often led to permanent blockades, this time everything went differently. After the end of the two-day protest, farmers unblocked the border. A week has passed since then, and there is no sign of their resuming the blockade.
At the same time, the protesters say that they were influenced by Tusk's explanations.
But not everything should be linked solely with US aid or the prime minister's words. There is also internal politics.
After all, the supposedly "non-political" movement Deceived Village closely cooperates with the far-right party Confederation and parliamentary and local elections in Poland have ended.
This may temporarily extinguish the real motivation of those who were the "drivers" of farmer or trucker protests.
There are also fewer substantive arguments among the protesters, as the European Parliament and the EU Council, while approving the extension of temporary trade liberalisation measures for Ukraine, did so with safeguards.
But have the farmers calmed down for long? It turned out that no. Although for now they are keeping away from the border.
Although there is no talk of a blockade of the Ukrainian-Polish border yet, new actions by farmers have already been announced.