Polish farmers’ enthusiasm for checking whether Ukrainian or Russian grain is being shipped from Lithuania to Poland appears to be waning, Vilmantas Vitkauskas, head of Lithuania’s National Crisis Management Centre (NKVC), has said.
Polish farmers last Friday started to partially block a major highway at the former Kalvarija-Budzisko border checkpoint, saying that they will be checking the trucks for a week, citing fears that some of the Ukrainian grain imported into Lithuania is returning to Poland.
“We see a decrease in the enthusiasm of Polish farmers. To our knowledge, there isn’t a single farmer at the border checkpoint overseeing this action,” Vitkauskas told LRT RADIO.
“That enthusiasm is waning because there are actually no such cargoes. Those accusations that were thrown at our country are pulled out of thin air,” he added.
According to the NKVC head, the situation at the border is under control, and Polish officials are working smoothly.
Lithuanian officials reject accusations of inadequate control of grain shipments and hope the protest, planned for a week, will be called off sooner.
However, Karol Pieczyński, one of the protest organisers, said the protest will proceed as planned.
“I think the protest will take place as planned – for seven days,” he told LRT RADIO on Monday.
He said that protesting Polish farmers have no grievances against Lithuanian hauliers or farmers, as it is not excluded that a lot of grain is transported with the help of Polish companies.
Arūnas Švitojus, chairman of the Lithuanian Chamber of Agriculture, said that Polish and Lithuanian farmers’ joint demands to their governments on grain transport issues will be drawn up on Wednesday and Thursday.
“The first issue will be for both countries to pass laws in the parliaments to bar the import of foreign grain from the East to Lithuania, which would help both farmers and producers,” he noted.
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