Deputy Polish Minister proposes to buy or lease the Odesa port

In Poland, a deputy minister has proposed buying or leasing a Ukrainian sea trade port in Odesa.

This “idea” was expressed by Poland’s deputy minister of agriculture, Michal Kolodziejczak, Polsat News reports.

Kolodziejczak duplicated a link to the interview on his  Facebook, adding that “Polish agriculture needs to go beyond the templates and make bold decisions.”

According to him, Poland should “buy or lease a port” in the Ukrainian city of Odesa to gain access to the Black Sea and export Polish and European grain through it.

According to the deputy minister of agriculture, companies “from the banks of the Vistula” should be able to use half a million hectares of land “in our eastern neighbors.”

According to the European Commissioner for Agriculture, strengthening the EU’s trade relations with Ukraine and the Mersocur countries could be beneficial for Europe if a trade war between European countries and the United States breaks out. These words were commented on by Kolodziejczak on the air.

As he noted, “we must have a Polish vision” in Warsaw’s relations with Kyiv.

“I haven’t heard any specifics yet. Why aren’t we talking in Poland — what I want to propose now — about the Poles talking to the Ukrainians about them, for example, leasing or selling us a quay for 50 years, where the Poles could have their own grain port?” — he suggested.

Kolodziejczak added that such a place could appear, for example, in Odesa, where “Polish and European grain will go.”

“In this way, we will secure access to the Black Sea, where the average (price — ed.) ton of wheat is 100 zlotys higher, because the costs of transportation to African countries are lower,” Kolodziejczak commented.

He assured that grain exported through the port, which “will be under Polish care,” could come “from Zamość, Lublin, Podkarpacie, where there is good land of the first, second, third class.”

“We could use the wide track that exists in Ukraine to bring Polish grain, as well as (…) perhaps what we would bring from Western Europe and keep with us,” he described.

Reference. Michal Kolodziejczak is not only a politician and deputy minister of agriculture in Poland, but also a farmer and founder of the socio-political movement Agrounia. He is an ambiguous political figure, promoting anti-Ukrainian sentiments in Polish society.

Kolodziejczak is a supporter of closing the European agricultural market to Ukraine for 20 years after its accession to the EU. He also led the Agrounia movement and led protests

against the import of Ukrainian grain. He was present at the farmers’ protest in Medyca.