Grain dispute. Ukraine is going to clash with Poland
The honeymoon in Polish-Ukrainian relations passed like the great friendship between Presidents Duda and Zelensky. Ukrainians know that if PiS retains power for another term, it will have to take into account the anti-Ukrainian skirmishers of the far right much more than it does now. The victory of the opposition is perceived in Kiev as Poland’s inevitable turn towards the German version of policy towards Russia.
The news that Ukraine would sue Poland to the World Trade Organization for blocking the import of their grain was treated on the Vistula River almost as a declaration of war. Bitter words about ingratitude for unconditional help are intertwined with the satisfied gasping of pro-Russian trolls and nationalists hostile to everything Ukrainian. In the real world, Poland’s room for maneuver is small.
The Ukrainians are going to the WTO for arbitration because they know they have every chance of winning: after all, it is the European Commission, not the member states, that decides on the EU’s trade policy. It is also difficult to imagine that the Polish government would start restricting the flow of military supplies to Ukraine as part of retaliation, as suggested by the most passionate defenders of the purity of the composition of Polish flour. This would be a stupid decision with disastrous consequences – which does not mean that it is impossible to make as part of the fight for everything that the parliamentary elections in Poland have turned into.
