Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Tuesday Warsaw would not accept the free trade deal negotiated by the European Union and the Mercosur bloc, joining the opposition against it led by France.
The contours of the agreement with the Mercosur bloc of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay were agreed in 2019, but some EU countries have blocked it going any further over competition concerns.
"Poland will not accept... the free trade agreement with the South American countries, that is, the Mercosur bloc, in this form," Tusk told reporters before a cabinet meeting.
His pro-EU government adopted a resolution opposing the current draft of the Mercosur deal, citing "concern for Polish farmers and food security" as the main reason.
France has been seeking to form a blocking minority against the deal -- an alliance that, under EU rules, would require at least four member states to succeed.
Poland's deputy prime minister said Warsaw, which received a visit by the French agriculture minister on Friday, had already joined Paris in that effort.
"Diplomatic actions are under way to build a minority that will block" the agreement from entering into force, Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz told reporters.
"Our primary ally is France, but... we are counting on other countries too," he added, saying the blocking minority "can be built, although of course it will not be easy."
'Ousted' from EU market
Poland's development minister said he would meet with his French counterpart next week to discuss the efforts to block the ratification of the Mercosur deal.
France's agriculture minister Annie Genevard told the French parliament on Tuesday that Paris would "fully" and "resolutely" oppose the agreement with Mercosur "as the [European] Commission envisaged it."
Earlier this month, the Polish Agriculture Ministry voiced "serious reservations" regarding the EU-Mercosur trade deal, warning that Polish and European producers could be "ousted from the EU market" if it is signed.
The ministry warned the deal may hurt Polish poultry and beef, sugar and ethanol producers the most.
The proposed trade pact sparked a new wave of farmers' protests, mostly in France, where demonstrators staged dozens of rallies across the country.
Polish farmers on Saturday blocked the border with neighbouring Ukraine, listing the Mercosur deal among the principal reasons for the protest.
The protest was suspended following talks with the Polish agriculture minister at the border on Sunday.
Lawmakers back Macron
French lawmakers on Tuesday overwhelmingly backed President Emmanuel Macron in rejecting a free-trade deal between the EU and South America's Mercosur bloc, saying it would hurt France's farmers.
By a vote of 484 to 70, the lower-house National Assembly approved the government's opposition to the deal "in its current form," in a non-binding vote.
"Under the current conditions" the draft agreement does not guarantee "fair competition for our farmers," Genevard told lawmakers before the vote.
Farmers held new demonstrations nationwide on Tuesday against the pact, with police stopping 50 tractors led by members of the second-largest farmers' union, Rural Coordination (CR), near the European Parliament in the eastern city of Strasbourg.
"We're banned from using insecticides, herbicides, GMO seeds, products that are considered dangerous to human health, and all these countries in South America are working with it, with huge deforestation. It is outrageous," said Cyril Hoffmann of the CR union.
– TIMES/AFP
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