The Minister of Agriculture, Stefan Krajewski, received from his staff a concrete action plan on how to block the agreement with Mercosur – announced former Minister of Agriculture Anna Gembicka. In her view, the agreement dangerous for farmers will be signed as a result of the Polish government’s inaction. She also pointed out that such a scenario had already been described earlier by German media.
On Friday, the ambassadors of the member states of the European Union gave their consent to conclude the trade agreement with Mercosur. Earlier, the Cypriot presidency of the European Union decided to bypass the European Parliament in the decision-making process regarding the agreement. This means that it may enter into force shortly after it is signed, which could happen as early as next week.
Despite grand announcements, Poland failed to build a minority that could block provisions dangerous for farmers.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk was asked on Friday about the failure to block the agreement. The head of government felt responsible for this outcome. “Someone apparently undertook to convince Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to change her mind, because it was Italy’s position that determined that Mercosur was not blocked. And someone invoked their friendship with Prime Minister Meloni. They failed to deliver,” he stated.
For many commentators, this statement amounts to a direct attack on President Karol Nawrocki.
“Inaction of the government”
According to former Minister of Agriculture Anna Gembicka, it is the government that is responsible for agreeing to sign the agreement “through its inaction”. “They were only pretending that they were trying to do anything at all,” she assessed.
The Law and Justice (PiS) politician said that she has information from the ministry indicating that employees had proposed a “concrete action plan” to the head of the ministry. “What’s more, the French Minister of Agriculture talked about concrete, joint actions, and unfortunately those actions never materialized. There were only appearances at press conferences […] only after my inspection – the day before the deadline for responding to the inspection expired – did he graciously send a letter to Commissioner Christophe Hansen, without even indicating the amount of the compensatory fund for farmers that he was supposedly demanding,” she recounted.
“This shows that, unfortunately, in the case of Tusk’s government we were dealing with a game of appearances. But German media already last year wrote bluntly that Tusk had reached an understanding with Germany and would simply pretend to block the agreement. In reality, we saw that when the Italians began to hesitate, on December 18 Donald Tusk came out and said that this agreement was safe for Polish farmers,” she said.
Let us recall that as early as December 2024, the German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported that the Polish prime minister would express opposition to the Mercosur agreement only until the presidential elections. At the time, the newspaper reminded readers how crucial the agreement is for the German economy.