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East European countries’ wholesale support for Ukraine cracking — Spanish daily

Accoridng to the article, Warsaw’s ban on the import of grain shows that its assistance to Kiev ends precisely where its own interests begin

MADRID, April 18. /TASS/. The situation involving the import of agricultural products from Ukraine to the EU demonstrates that the Eastern European states’ unconditional support for Kiev is showing signs of cracking, the Spanish daily El Pais said on Tuesday.

According to the daily, Poland, which has provided all sorts of assistance to Ukraine since last February, has made it clear that this support has certain limits in one key area - the economic one. Warsaw’s ban on the import of grain shows that its assistance to Kiev ends precisely where its own interests begin. The periodical draws attention to the upcoming fall parliamentary elections in Poland.

According to the newspaper, the rural areas, which may suffer due to the influx of cheaper grain, will play a crucial role in the upcoming elections. The first signs that Warsaw was ready to reconsider its policy of support for Ukraine emerged several months ago, when Poland announced it would start charging partial accommodation fees to those Ukrainian refugees who had spent more than four months in government-funded shelters.

On April 16, Poland and Hungary announced a temporary ban on the import of agricultural products from Ukraine. It will stay in effect until June 30. Both countries said that they were forced to take this measure, as there was no response from the European Commission to their demands for assistance to Hungarian and Polish farmers, who are facing significant losses due to their domestic markets being oversupplied with agricultural products from Ukraine. On April 17, the Slovak government introduced a similar measure.

On April 14, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and the Czech Republic called for the creation of a common European mechanism for purchasing Ukrainian grain and the introduction of customs quotas in the EU for farm produce from Ukraine. On April 13, the Slovak Agriculture Ministry imposed a temporary ban on the processing and sale of grain already imported from Ukraine. The ban also applies to flour already produced from it.

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