Poland to build grain port in Gdańsk: farm minister
The Polish government has signed an agreement with the Baltic port of Gdańsk for the construction of a grain terminal, the farm minister has said.
Photo:Zala, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
Robert Telus announced the project at a meeting with voters in the south-central town of Przysucha on Monday, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
The farm minister announced: “At last we’ll have a grain port.”
He added the deal for the construction of the grain terminal was signed by the state-run company RSSI and the port of Gdańsk.
Telus also said that “thanks to the tough decisions taken by the government,” Ukrainian grain had been banned from the Polish market.
He stressed the government “didn’t allow Ukrainian grain to flood the Polish market,” to protect the interests of Polish farmers, “rather than of bureaucrats from Brussels.”
Last month, Poland introduced a ban on Ukrainian grain imports, after the European Union’s executive Commission decided not to extend its embargo on the import of wheat, corn, rapeseed, sunflower and sunflower oil from Ukraine to Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia, according to news outlets.
Poland’s farm minister said on Monday that following the move by Brussels, Ukrainian grain stopped reaching countries in most need, in Africa and the Middle East, and could have again “flooded the European market,” the PAP news agency reported.
Telus added that grain shortage in African and Arab countries would cause “famine, social unrest and migration” to Europe,” fitting the plans of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The minister said that the Polish government would allocate “the biggest-ever aid package” for Poland’s farmers, worth PLN 15 billion (EUR 3.3 billion), to help with the consequences of the war in Ukraine and related market disturbances, the PAP news agency reported.
State aid is also provided to farmers hit by drought, and to fruit growers, he added.
Tuesday is day 594 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, launching the largest military campaign in Europe since World War II.
Poland to elect new parliament on October 15
Poles will head to the ballot box to vote in parliamentary elections on Sunday. They will elect 460 MPs and 100 senators for a four-year term.
The governing conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, allied with two smaller groupings in a United Right coalition, is seeking a third term in power after a convincing win in 2019 and a landslide in 2015.
Sixty-eight percent of respondents to a recent survey said they intended to vote in the upcoming ballot.
Poland’s largest opposition bloc, the Civic Coalition (KO), last month won a mock election held in the central town of Wieruszów to measure voter sentiment ahead of the real ballot.
Poland’s ruling conservatives have promised to bring in a raft of new policies if they retain power.
(pm/gs)
Source: PAP, TVP Info
