WARSAW: Throwing smoke bombs and lighting fires, thousands of angry farmers demonstrated in Warsaw on Wednesday against EU regulation and cheap Ukraine imports, with police reporting that two officers had been injured and a dozen protesters detained.
Some demonstrators tried to force their way past security railings onto parliament grounds, according to police. Farmers also organised tractor blockades on roads across the country.
“Behavior threatening the safety of our officers, including throwing cobblestone at them, cannot be ignored,” police said on X, formerly Twitter. “A couple of police officers were injured. At the moment, a dozen people have been detained,” they added.
Polish farmers have been blocking border crossings with Ukraine since last month to protest at what they say is unfair competition from goods entering from Ukraine. “I want to produce healthy food but we’re importing products lower in quality than ours with which we can’t compete in terms of price,” said Jan Kepa, who has a farm in southwestern Poland. “We still have hope but we’ve been protesting for over a month and so far there’s been no satisfying solution for us,” he said.
