Tens of hundreds of farmers and their supporters warned on Wednesday they might deliver Poland to a standstill, after violent clashes with police outdoors the nation’s parliament in Warsaw.
The protesters had gathered on the prime minister’s workplace within the Polish capital, burning tyres and throwing firecrackers as they demanded a halt to low-cost imports and environmental laws they are saying hurt their livelihoods.
They then marched in the direction of parliament, the place a Reuters witness noticed police utilizing batons, pepper spray, tear gasoline and stun grenades towards demonstrators, whereas some protesters hurled rocks, cobblestones and firecrackers on the safety forces.
“Resulting from bodily aggression towards law enforcement officials by among the folks protesting … it was needed to make use of direct coercive measures,” Warsaw police wrote in a publish on X.
Poland’s Inside Minister Marcin Kierwinski mentioned in a publish on X that “23 provocateurs have been detained”. Native media footage confirmed a number of protesters forcing their method onto parliamentary grounds, earlier than being subdued by police.
Tomasz Obszanski, a farmers’ union chief and protest organiser, instructed Reuters that police started blocking protesters from leaving because the demonstration ended.
“All the pieces was peaceable, and abruptly the police got here out of nowhere, there have been loud bangs, the police began utilizing (tear) gasoline and easily frightening folks leaving the protest,” mentioned Obszanski, chief of the NSZZ RI Solidarnosc union for particular person farmers.
Farmers throughout the European Union have been calling for adjustments to restrictions positioned on them by the bloc’s Inexperienced Deal plan to deal with local weather change, and for the re-imposition of customs duties on imports of agricultural merchandise from Ukraine that have been waived after Russia’s invasion.
Obszanski mentioned that the farmers have been leaving Warsaw empty-handed after their request to fulfill with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk was turned down and warned of additional measures.
“After what occurred at the moment, there might be a blockade of all the nation … Poland will come to a standstill, as a result of a Polish farmer is not going to enable himself to be handled in such a method, to be batonned,” Obszanski mentioned.
Tusk has invited farmers leaders for talks on Saturday.
Obszanski estimated the variety of protesters was within the excessive tens of hundreds, whereas Warsaw metropolis officers mentioned they numbered about 30,000.
The farmers, who have been making good on their promise to return to Warsaw after hundreds of them marched by way of the town every week earlier, have been backed by Poland’s largest labour union, NSZZ Solidarnosc, in addition to hunters and forestry employees.
Earlier some protesters burned a coffin bearing an indication that learn “farmer, lived 20 years, killed by the Inexperienced Deal” on the street in entrance of Tusk’s workplace, blowing horns and holding Polish flags aloft earlier than marching on parliament.
Tv footage confirmed tractors on the outskirts of Warsaw being stopped from getting into, whereas farmers blocked roads elsewhere within the nation.
Tusk faces a fragile balancing act, in search of to handle farmers’ issues whereas additionally sustaining his staunch assist for Kyiv in a yr when it faces each native and European elections.
He has mentioned that market disruptions weren’t solely brought on by imports from Ukraine, but in addition from Russia and its ally Belarus, and on Monday mentioned Poland deliberate to ask the EU to ban imports of Russian and Belarusian agricultural merchandise.
