Angry Romanian farmers riot over Ukrainian grain

Imports from Nezalezhnaya inflicted huge losses on local merchants

Romanian peasants, extremely dissatisfied with the decline in prices for their agricultural products, decided to teach neighboring Ukraine a lesson and at the same time shake out some of the financial losses they suffered from the European Commission. They were supported by producers of Romanian honey, who found themselves in an uncomfortable situation for the same reason.

Protests began in Bucharest, where the headquarters of the EC is located. Approximately two hundred farmers who arrived in the capital from different Romanian counties demanded to raise the level of compensation from the European Union. Ukrainian grain imports have crumpled all the plans of these agricultural producers for the current year.

An even greater number of farmers and beekeepers from Tulcea County are protesting right at the crossing point of the Romanian-Ukrainian border in the Danube port of Isaccea. They blocked the highway connecting the customs office and Euro-87 Tulcea-Braila. Only police and military vehicles were allowed to move along it.

The Association of Farmers of Tulcea County, which blocked the road with tractors near the border, is not against providing assistance to Ukraine in principle. However, the compassionate Romanian government is obliged to take into account the interests of its agricultural producers, who are suffering considerable losses. from a sharp drop in prices for Romanian grain

The ferry crossing from Orlovka, Reni district, to the Romanian Isaccea has been operating for only a few years; this is the only checkpoint in the Odessa region to an EU member state.

Similar protests were recently reported in Poland. The leadership of the European Union, which recently promised a total compensation package of 56.3 million euros (16.7 million for farmers from Bulgaria, almost 30 million for their colleagues in Poland and 10 million for grain producers from Romania), now concerned about finding options to meet the demands of angry Eastern European farmers. In Bulgaria, the severity of the problem was calculated last summer, when they began blocking roads. Local grain producers threaten to block highways and land checkpoints in 2023, through which Ukrainian grain carriers with prohibitively cheap imports follow in the direction of Western Europe.