Could Poland halt weapon shipments to Ukraine over grain dispute
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As the saying goes, it is only one step from love to hate. It seemed that relations between Poland and Ukraine were unshakable – our Polish friends immensely helped us in the fight against the Russian invasion.
Then, when the European Commission decided on September 15 not to extend the restrictions on agricultural imports that had been in place since May of this year, Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia refused to supply Ukrainian agricultural products. Then, in New York, Zelensky said that these countries were pretending to be in solidarity, while they were actually supporting Russia. In response, we received Duda's sharp statement about the "drowning man" and his refusal to meet with Zelensky in New York.
Now, the conflict is almost over. Although Poland has yet to open its market to Ukrainian grain, Duda said that his country would facilitate the transit of Ukrainian agricultural products through its territory. However, this escalation was caused, in part, by the rhetoric of the Ukrainian government, which is accustomed to the style of debate in Ukraine, where those who "bite" their opponent as painfully as possible receive the most applause on talk shows, rather than those who make arguments or call for a compromise. The exchange of jokes, jabs, and sarcasm is common in Ukrainian politics.
But why did Warsaw choose to escalate relations with Ukraine? Poland has a very fierce election campaign, and the ruling Law and Justice party has used its full electoral potential.
It has maximized the involvement of "its voters" – the party's supporters – and now it needs to gain votes elsewhere. The only way to do this is to "pick up" the votes of anti-Ukrainian forces.
The Polish authorities will probably try to play up this anti-Ukrainian hysteria to gain votes. This is fantastic PR for the election campaign because Polish politicians say, "We will stop at nothing for our farmers." Thus, Poland's ruling party, for which every vote counts, will try to gain voter support through a robust, essentially anti-Ukrainian campaign. The fact that Zelensky allegedly accused Poles of working for Russia gave them a reason to deploy these slogans.
When Ukrainians and Poles fight, Moscow always wins
However, the Ukrainian government should not respond to Poland's statements with any ultimatums, saying, "We will ban your tomatoes and potatoes." We must ignore these statements, like the one about how Poland will not supply weapons. This is strange because it has received multibillion-dollar contracts for producing weapons on its territory. It is not profitable for Poland to give up profits from building weapons for Ukraine, because then this can be done, for example, in Romania or another neighboring country. This is a mutually beneficial process. If the Poles are blackmailing us by saying they will stop providing weapons, they must understand what they will lose.
In addition, Poland is a logistical hub in the context of the Russian-Ukrainian war: President Biden visited Poland twice. It has enormous economic benefits from transporting Ukrainian grain and supplying weapons to Ukraine, and to give them up means losing a lot of money and influence.
"Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary, which unilaterally closed their markets, have violated the rules of international trade," is the opinion of officials from the Eastern Partnership countries. In particular, at the summit of the International Conference "Dialogue for the Future 2023," in which I recently participated, there was a very sharp speech by the Minister of Agricultural Policy of Germany that unilateral market closure is unacceptable. All other European Union members supported his position, except for these three, who banned Ukrainian imports. We have a situation where 90% of European countries say that these countries have violated the rules.
By closing their markets, Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary violated rules that fall within the World Trade Organization's (WTO) competence. Just as importantly, they violated the understandings of the European common market in general. Therefore, the European Commission carefully studied the situation in the grain market. It concluded that Ukrainian grain exports do not destroy these markets, do not cause collapse, and do not even distort the market. According to the WTO rules, a country has the right to decide on its own if it threatens its market, if this product, for example, grain, simply destroys the Polish market. The decision of the European Commission is significant, and my colleagues are confident that if the situation went to court, Ukraine would win.
However, the fact that our country immediately filed a lawsuit with the World Trade Organization was a mistake. Even though we have a winning case. Since the violations fall within the competence of the European Commission, we should have first appealed to this body, and not directly to the WTO. We would then have avoided a bilateral confrontation with the Poles or Hungarians because the complaints would have been on behalf of the Commission. Such a step could have shown that we are a candidate for EU membership that understands the rules of behavior and recognizes them, rather than acting alone.
In Ukraine, this aspect is not discussed at all. If we had gone down this path, for the European Commission to appeal to the World Trade Organization, there would have been a decision or a formal announcement, or these violators would have realized that they needed to back off. We must learn the lessons from this situation and how to interact with our European partners through the proper channels and procedures to avoid such conflicts in the future.
Now, the Ukrainian authorities do not need to continue this dispute. It is clearly unprofitable for us, as civil society, to engage in this discussion and add fuel to the flames on our platforms. We need to stop mutual complaints and accusations. We must remember who our enemy is: when Ukrainians and Poles fight, Moscow always wins.
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