The European Commission strikes again the Polish national interest. Approval of the trade agreement with Mercosur is not a "success of integration" or "opening to the world", it is simply a public blow to European and, above all, Polish agriculture. The entry into the Union of low-cost agricultural products from South America means a marketplace flood of uncontrollable food with lower standards, produced on a basis incomparable to the reality of our farms. For what? In the name of the interests of the German manufacture and the EU game of appearances.
This is not liberalisation – this is marketplace colonization. Polish farmers are on the line of profitability today. They face absurd EU standards, rising costs, inflation, Green Deal and bureaucracy. Now they gotta compete with the large agribusinesses of Brazil or Argentina, which do not gotta follow any "green regulation"? This is not a fair competition. This is an open economical war in which the Commission itself is against its own citizens.
This contract will benefit mainly German industry. German automotive, chemical and technology companies will have access to Mercosur markets without duties and with simplified procedures. In return, the Union feeds agriculture to the food industry. It is simply a deal concluded under the dictatorship of Berlin, which has long regarded the common marketplace as a tool for the expansion of its industry. The rest, and especially the east part of Europe, is to be just a marketplace and a base for inexpensive labour. This is how the Union is doing it.
Import of meat, sugar and poultry will hit Polish farms directly. Despite the assurances about “quotas” and “limitations”, everyone knows how specified compromises end. First 1 ton enters, then ten, then the marketplace is flooded. The authority in Brussels can talk about "protection of delicate products", but the real point is to sacrifice farmers in exchange for the political gains of large players. It's disgrace and betrayal.
The Polish village is betrayed again and left to itself. Farmers' protests have been ignored, ridiculed, marginalised for years. Now we get another slap. alternatively of strengthening Europe's food security, the European Commission prefers to import meat and sugar from across the ocean. What happens erstwhile South American suppliers rise prices? Where will our own national agriculture then be? The answer is simple: he will be gone at all.
Time to call things by their first name. This agreement has nothing to do with the safety and future of European agricultural production. It is simply a purely political decision that rewards the strongest and sacrifices the weakest. Poland should powerfully argue its ratification and request real protection of its agriculture – not for show, but for serious reasons.
Arthur Szczepek
