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Polish prime minister holds talks with farmers

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Farmers have been protesting for weeks

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Union leaders say protests will continue

By Marek Strzelecki

WARSAW, March 9 (Reuters) - Poland's prime minister

pledged to reduce a grain surplus on the domestic market at

talks with farmers on Saturday, a government official said, but

union leaders said they were pressing on with weeks of protests.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk held three hours of talks in

Warsaw with the farmers, who are demanding a halt to cheap

imports and to environmental regulations they say harm their

livelihoods.

"The premier told the farmers there will be money available

to take several million tons of grain off the market," Deputy

Agriculture Minister Michal Kolodziejczak told reporters,

suggesting a cut of 4-5 million tons had been proposed.

But Tomasz Obszanski, leader of the NSZZ RI Solidarnosc

union for individual farmers, said after the meeting that the

protests would continue and would be stronger.

"In reality we left the meeting with nothing," he told

reporters.

Andrzej Sobocinski, a farmer from northern Poland, told

reporters after taking part in the meeting that dealing with the

surplus was not enough.

"If grain keeps flowing from Russia and other countries the

problem will persist," Sobocinski said.

Farmers across the European Union have been calling for

changes to restrictions placed on them by the bloc's Green Deal

plan to tackle climate change, and for the re-imposition of

customs duties on imports of agricultural products from Ukraine

that were waived after Russia's invasion in 2022.

Farmers from neighboring Poland, Hungary and Slovakia, all

of which are members of the EU, say the move undercut their

prices. Ukraine is not part of the 27-member EU.

Poland has called for an EU ban on imports of Russian and

Belarusian agricultural products.

In Warsaw, protests by tens of thousands of farmers and

their supporters ended in violent clashes with police this week,

and the protesters warned they would bring Poland to a

standstill.

The farmers' leaders had hoped to hold talks with Tusk on

Tuesday but said their request was turned down. Tusk, however,

invited them to talks on Saturday.

The protests, including blockades of Ukrainian border

crossings and disruptions at ports and on roads, have posed a

challenge for the new government led by Tusk.

He faces a balancing act, seeking to address farmers'

concerns while maintaining Warsaw's staunch support for Kyiv in

a year when local and European elections will be held.