Polish farmers have blocked the movement of Ukrainian trucks to Poland through the Shegini border checkpoint, the Ukrainian State Border Service has said.
“In front of the Medyka checkpoint, Polish farmers blocked the movement of trucks travelling from Ukraine to Poland. Passage of cars, buses, as well as trucks to enter Ukraine is carried out as usual,” the statement said.
The Border Guard Service promised to report on the resumption of crossing operations, but in the meantime called on truckers to choose other routes to Poland.
Apparently, this is because restrictions on grain imports from Ukraine to neighbouring EU countries Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria expired on 5 June.
The European Commission yesterday extended its ban until 15 September, although it promised to soften it gradually.
“The EU is gradually lifting until 15 September the exceptional and temporary preventive measures taken on 2 May on imports of wheat, maize, rapeseed and sunflower seeds from Ukraine under the exceptional safeguards of the Autonomous Trade Measures Regulation,” it said.
At the same time, the scope of restrictive measures is further reduced from 17 to 6 tariff lines for the four specified products.
It is not specified what the current protest by Polish drivers is related to. But it is possible that yesterday the grain corridor through Poland started working again, until the new EC regulation came out.
