Polish Deputy Prime Minister: the EU-Mercosur cooperation agreement threatens Polish agriculture

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“No to the EU-Mercosur contract! (…) The proposed agreement endangers Polish farmers and consumers,” wrote Kosiniak-Kamysz on X. He added that the Polish Peasants’ Party, which he leads, is firmly against the finalization of the contract. The Polish Ministry of Agriculture also expressed “serious reservations” against the EU-Mercosur contract in the resolution published on Monday. The agreement may bring “certain benefits” to the industrial sector, maritime transport and some services, but it would harm the majority of the agricultural and food industry production segments, they emphasized. They complained that products from the Mercosur countries (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay) mostly do not meet EU standards, including sustainability requirements. Acceptance of the agreement in its current form would result in the displacement of Polish and European producers in general from the EU market in favor of South American producers, they stated.

The head of the Polish Ministry of Agriculture is Czeslaw Siekierski, a PSL politician, the official position of the entire Polish government on the matter has not yet been announced

Former Polish Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the president of the main opposition party, Law and Justice, announced at a press conference on Thursday: his party does not agree to the ratification of the EU-Mercosur treaty, and will strive to create a majority in the Polish parliament that rejects the document together with other groups. The contract is also opposed by several farmers’ organizations in Poland, and the agricultural section of Solidarity (NSZZ RIS) has announced a readiness to strike because of the matter. Tomasz Ognisty, vice president of NSZZ RIS, stated on the Radio Wnet radio channel at the end of October that the main motive for signing the contract was “to save the German automotive industry”. Germany is “looking for a market for (…) its automotive products, and South America is the ideal place to find it, and in return beef will flow to Europe from that part of the world,” Ognisty explained. Tomasz Obszanski, the president of NSZZ RIS, sent a letter to Prime Minister Donald Tusk on Tuesday, in which he called for the veto of the EU-Mercosur treaty. Obszanski underlined that Solidarity joins the French, Austrian, Irish and Hungarian farmers in protesting against the agreement that resulted in the “bankruptcy of Polish and European farmers”.

MTI