Close to 1,000 farmers protested near the Hungary-Ukraine border crossing at Záhony on Friday against the European Commission’s proposal to extend the unlimited imports of Ukrainian agricultural products by one year.
According to MTI, the protesters lined up hundreds of tractors and trucks along a 5km section of the road leading to the border station on both lanes blocking regular traffic. They put Hungarian flags on their vehicles and held up at the Záhony crossing banners with slogans criticising Brussels and the EC and expressing support for Hungarian agriculture. István Jakab, the head of the farmers’ association Magosz, said that “incompetent people” in Brussels were destroying Europe’s agricultural sector and the European people. He noted a similar demonstration staged against EU regulations by Hungarian farmers last September to protect the 5 million hectares of the country’s arable land. Jakab said European farmers could not compete with Ukraine’s large producers and their off-shore registered foreign owners and investors “who want to put their hands on large sizes of arable land in Ukraine with Brussels’ help”. “And they want to first weaken and finally put their hands on the European market,” he added.