Romanian presidential candidate says he will stop grain transit from Ukraine

Romanian presidential candidate Victor Ponta has said that if elected, he will stop the transit of Ukrainian grain through the country’s ports.

Ponta told Reuters in an interview that this is necessary to protect local farmers.

Romania has helped export about 29 million tons of Ukrainian grain through its Black Sea port of Constanta since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

“In recent years, there has been a policy in favor of Ukrainian grain in terms of access to port infrastructure, which has been to the detriment of Romanian grain, and Romanian farmers have suffered greatly from this,” Ponta said in an interview.

He said that he would maintain other existing measures in support of Ukraine, including the transit of weapons and the training of Ukrainian pilots.

Ponta, who resigned as prime minister in 2015 after a deadly nightclub fire and whose first presidential campaign in 2014 failed due to bureaucratic obstacles to Romanians voting abroad, said he supports what he calls “radical change” in the United States.

“We have to be just pragmatic and understand that the situation in Washington has changed dramatically and … we can have relations on other principles: pragmatism, common interests and military cooperation,” Ponta said. “Thank God, I play golf, and thank God, I don’t beat President Trump. He beats me, barely, but he beats me.”

Ponta also said that his “Romania First” approach within the EU and NATO would focus on supporting the EU accession of Moldova and the Western Balkans, as well as strategic partnerships with Poland and Turkey, the main military power in the Black Sea.

“Realistically, Romania cannot support another country, be it Ukraine or another. But it has the capacity to do so for Moldova,” the candidate added.

Earlier, USM reported that Ukrainian grain exports through Constanta had decreased by almost six times.