Poland is set to call on the European Union to ban food imports from Russia and Belarus to improve regional security and protect the bloc’s agricultural market, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on March 4.

Polish farmers have been out protesting against what they say is a massive influx of agricultural imports from Ukraine that has depressed prices, eroding their livelihoods. While much smaller in scale, farm product imports from hostile Russia and Belarus continue unabated, according to a recent report by Ukrainian journalist Mykhailo Tkach.

“I am convinced that a joint European decision [to ban imports from Russia and Belarus] will be incomparably more effective than individual decisions of countries in the region,” Tusk said while on a visit to Lithuania.

“It is about the need to tighten and strengthen sanctions in response to Russia's attack on Ukraine and Belarus' collaboration with Russia in this attack, but it also concerns a more effective protection of the European, Lithuanian, and Polish agricultural markets, as well as the food market,” Tusk said.

The Polish PM also said that the EU’s agricultural markets – Polish and Lithuanian in particular – have come under immense pressure because of the war, and agricultural imports from Russia and Belarus were, in fact, factors of destabilisation. 

A way to reduce that pressure is to ensure Ukraine can sell its farm products to countries it had traditionally supplied before the war, Tusk also said.

The PM is going to ask the Polish parliament this week for a resolution calling on the ban of farm product imports from Russia and Belarus. The parliament begins a three-day session on March 6.

Poland imported food products from Russia were worth €350 million last year, Bloomberg has reported. That was much less than the €1.7 billion worth of imports from Ukraine.

Top agricultural products brought in from Russia include onions, cucumbers, and carrots. Poland also imports Russian grains and other products.