Krzysztof Tołwiński, Polish agrarian politician, farmer, and former deputy minister of the treasury, strongly criticizes the European Union’s decision to impose hefty tariffs on fertilizers from Russia and Belarus. 🌾💥 Calling out what he calls “stupidity,” Tołwiński warns that Poland must now deal with the serious fallout of this policy, which threatens farmers and the country’s agricultural future. A must-watch insight into the challenges facing Poland amid EU sanctions and trade conflicts. 🌍🚜
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#KrzysztofTołwiński #Poland #EUtariffs #FertilizerCrisis #Agriculture #RussiaSanctions #Belarus #EuropeanUnion #Farmers #TradeWar #EconomicPolicy #PolishPolitics #AgrarianCrisis #SanctionsImpact #FoodSecurity #EUPolitics #TradeDispute #TheDuran #GlobalEconomy #FarmersAtRisk #PoliticalCriticism
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00:00Mr. Tolvinsky, good day. Thank you very much for taking the time to join us.
00:11My first question, the European Parliament has approved the introduction of duties on the import of fertilizers from Russia and Belarus.
00:19European farmers have spoken out against this step, arguing that it will lead to a sharp drop in their own incomes
00:26and to an increase in prices for their products.
00:29How justified do you think these concerns are and what consequences could this step lead to?
00:35With your permission, I'd like to add to that picture.
00:38This is not quite the case because in Poland, a year or even two years ago,
00:42we had agricultural protests driven by dissatisfaction with the agricultural policies of both the previous and the current government.
00:49And as you can imagine, one of the demands of Polish farmers was precisely about introducing an embargo,
00:54a ban on importing fertilizers from the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus.
00:59Frankly speaking, in the case of Polish farmers, the European Parliament ended up meeting their demands.
01:04It was a completely different story with Spanish and French farmers who were even more rational in their approach.
01:09I mention this because it's a question of confrontational politics and ideology, something that many European governments and the EU itself share.
01:16As a result, we now have this three-stage plan, adopted by the European Parliament, according to which,
01:21tariffs on fertilizers from Russia and Belarus will rise by nearly 100% in the coming years.
01:26Let's be honest, these are nothing but phobias. In this case, it's a collective phobia of the politicians mostly.
01:32But often the public in the European Union panics as well.
01:35It is rooted in the historical complexes of Polish politicians and a significant part of Polish society.
01:40I know the agricultural world. I'm a farmer. What really worries me here is this deep-seated complex toward Russia and Belarus.
01:47And, of course, what the politicians claim and, unfortunately, what the societies subjected to this propaganda are accepting,
01:54whether in Poland or in other countries, is how they're going to help Ukraine in the war against Russia.
01:59And, unfortunately, this is being accepted by a significant, let's face it, by an overwhelming majority of the population.
02:06And, of course, there's another incredibly dishonest argument that it is the fertilizers imported from Russia and Belarus
02:12that supposedly hurt our competitiveness, that our chemical and fertilizer production, our European companies, are getting hurt by it.
02:20Of course, that's not true. After all, Poland has been refusing to buy Russian gas since 2021, while the EU stopped in 2022.
02:29And we all know that 70% of the cost of producing nitrogen fertilizers comes from gas.
02:34The source of energy is key. If Poland today, or any other EU country, is using gas imported from the United States,
02:41then, naturally, there is no way. With such high energy costs, no market economy could possibly sustain the production of chemical fertilizers,
02:49particularly nitrogen fertilizers, at the level that we once had here in the European Union.
02:54These actions, imposing such high tariffs on fertilizers from Russia and Belarus, will in no way help the competitiveness of the European fertilizer industry,
03:03or Poland's fertilizer industry in particular. Let me add one more thing, because it's important.
03:09For several months, I served as the Minister of State Treasury, managing and overseeing state-owned companies.
03:14And I have to say, Poland's Grupa Azoty is the second largest producer in the European Union,
03:19and year after year, ever since the Polish state began pursuing its aggressive policy towards Russia,
03:24has refused to import cheap energy resources supplied by Russia.
03:28This company has been suffering enormous losses. As a result, just in the first quarter of this year,
03:33well, last year there were losses too, but for the first quarter of this year alone, it's around 100 million US dollars.
03:40But, my dear friends, first of all, Poland is rife with corruption. The state is deeply corrupt.
03:47And second, there's staggering incompetence. Because it's not managers who run these state-owned companies, it's politicians.
03:55And I'll give you an example. The head of the state-owned company, Grupa Azoty, which I already mentioned,
04:00today earns a salary of about 50,000 US dollars, despite all these massive losses.
04:05And the rest of them are in the same boat. The state is being plundered.
04:08These are the main reasons why fertilizers are so expensive in Europe and in Poland.
04:13And, of course, farmers have already cut back their purchases by 20%, which is only natural, given the situation today,
04:19even though competitively priced Russian fertilizers are still accessible.
04:23They have already cut their purchases.
04:25As soon as these tariffs are introduced and access to market-based rational price for fertilizers,
04:30in this case Russian and Belarusian fertilizers, is cut off, there will be further decline in fertilizer consumption.
04:36Poland's consumption is already significantly lower compared to the EU average.
04:40This is a powerful blow to agriculture and, of course, to consumers, to Europeans,
04:45whose food will become significantly more expensive.
04:48I'm sorry to have gone into such detail, but I think it's very important to provide a broader perspective on the issue.
04:54Yes, yes, thank you very much. I wanted to clarify with you what you just finished with,
05:01because all of this comes down, as you rightly say, to the final cost of the goods on the shelf.
05:07If we take a hypothetical farmer, Marcin, let's say, and his family, how will this decision affect him,
05:14as a farmer, and other citizens of Poland who may not have anything to do with farming,
05:19or with the agricultural industry, those who just come to the store to buy groceries,
05:25according to your forecasts, what will be the effects, and how will this affect them?
05:31As a Pole, a Polish farmer, a Polish politician, I hope this will have a sobering effect,
05:38and we, Poles, will finally begin to heal from Russophobia.
05:41Because there is no way that this serious step, let's be honest, right now Poland, Polish farmers,
05:46our government's official website states that 25 to 30 percent of the fertilizers we use,
05:52nitrogen fertilizers, from the Russian Federation. Let's say the truth.
05:55Russian fertilizers have been supplied to us through Kazakhstan, Morocco, and so on,
06:00labeled as products of those countries.
06:02And this supply has covered up to 40 percent of Polish agriculture's demand for nitrogen fertilizers,
06:08as they are much more cost effective.
06:10I, too, as a farmer, have used Russian fertilizers, and I consider it an honor to have used them.
06:15Now, if nearly 50 percent of farmers see their costs rise by over 30 percent,
06:20well, farmers are already talking about it.
06:22Like the hypothetical Polish farmer you mentioned, Marcin, with a farm of 80 to 100 acres.
06:27He won't stand a chance in Polish agriculture. And that's just one factor.
06:31And if you add drought and other factors, the number of farms is decreasing dramatically.
06:36Young people, 30 to 40 years old, don't want to work in the economic conditions set up by the state,
06:41which is acting against the interests of these people in the role of a killer.
06:45I've been observing the situation in Russia, and I know that there are also problems in agriculture there,
06:50and farmers face challenges, just like in any other European country, including France.
06:55However, I believe the total lack of political regulation and this ban on fertilizer imports from Russia and Belarus fits right in,
07:02especially on Belarusian potash. That's the final nail in the coffin for the farms.
07:06And, of course, consumers will feel the consequences.
07:09But this doesn't upset me at all. We Poles must face the consequences of our own stupidity,
07:14because this confrontational policy between Poland and Russia is our own doing.
07:19And, fortunately, it hasn't spread to other areas yet.
07:22In this context, people today need to understand that any such actions driven by phobias,
07:28actions taken out of spite or plain unfriendly moves against neighbors, they will bear the consequences.
07:34Maybe this will finally make them come to their senses.
07:39Yes, indeed, as you say, does not sound like a simple desire to help farmers and fertilizer producers in Europe in the European Union.
07:47It looks as if the politicians in Brussels are driven by the desire to do harm.
07:52And here, as they say, beat your own so that others are afraid.
07:56Wouldn't it be better, in your opinion, if you were in the European Parliament to take measures to support the domestic producer,
08:05rather than to try to somehow annoy the foreign producer, in this case the producers in Russia and Belarus?
08:11Dear ladies and gentlemen watching us now in Russia, I hope you're listening to this.
08:17Your question makes perfect sense. And please note, I'm answering you as a citizen of the Republic of Poland, as a Polish politician.
08:24There is no sense in the actions of certain current governments, certain states within the so-called European Union,
08:30and especially in the European Parliament. No one there is guided by logic or common sense.
08:35The fertilizer issue fits perfectly into the Ukraine conflict agenda, because today both governmental agencies of the EU
08:42and governments of the vast majority of its member states, except Hungary and Slovakia,
08:46are aligning themselves with militaristic rhetoric, and they are willing to do whatever it takes.
08:51The EU government and individual EU nation governments are trying to convince their own peoples, their citizens, to do the following.
08:58Sacrifice yourselves, pay any price, so that we can weaken Russia, no matter what the cost,
09:03and defeat Russia on the so-called battlefield, so that we, as the European Union, can defeat Russia and help Ukraine,
09:10or rather, help the neo-Nazi regime in Ukraine grow stronger.
09:14And the fertilizer issue plays a key role in this context, because Poland's largest chemical company, Grupa Azote,
09:20which is the second largest producer in the EU, has recently been exporting nearly 40% of its output to Ukraine directly,
09:26against its own interests, in what is actually an act of sabotage against Poland's state budget and against Polish citizens.
09:36What are they thinking? These international investment funds, obviously out of touch with reality, think that neo-Nazi Ukraine is going to prevail.
09:45In this context, what happened in the European Parliament fits perfectly into this pipe dream, that they'll be able to produce fertilizers cheaply on Ukrainian soil.
09:55Of course, when you factor in certain standards, costs, raw materials, I don't know how that would even be possible,
10:01but in the EU itself, it is already difficult, impossible in fact, to compete with the economically viable market-based products coming from Russia.
10:09So, they're keeping these dreams alive, that they will also develop agriculture in Ukraine.
10:14But for them, the poor Ukrainian farmer doesn't matter, and the state is not acting in his interests.
10:20In their system, they imagine they'll be producing fertilizers there, which will make them competitive,
10:25and help them get rid of fertilizers on the European market.
10:28You see, step by step, at any cost, it's not just a propaganda move, but it has a serious economic rationale for the future.
10:35They think that by building up their chemical fertilizer production in Ukraine, they'll be able to drive out competitors from Russia and Belarus.
10:43I just want to readdress the topic of Ukraine.
10:47From June 5th, the European Union will cancel duty-free import of goods from Ukraine to the EU.
10:54Can this be considered a signal of some changes in relations between Brussels and Kyiv, in your opinion?
11:02No, not at all. One should understand what is really going on.
11:08It is a purely propagandist move by the European Union and the states that are supporting Ukraine.
11:13We should recall that before 2022, that is, before Russia's special military operation, there were quotas set for Ukrainian imports to the EU.
11:21This is key to understanding what is happening. Those were quantitative quotas, allowing, say, 400,000 tons of wheat, this or that amount of corn, etc., to be imported.
11:32Again, those were quotas between Ukraine and the European Union as a whole.
11:36Naturally, much of these supplies passed through Poland, due to its geographical location.
11:41And what do you think happened, my friends? Those shipments were not tracked. It turned out that the actual volumes exceeded quotas by 300 to 400%, so those 300 to 400,000 tons of wheat turned into 1 million, or 1.5 million, and so on.
11:58This happened with all duty-free product shipments. After you paid a certain amount of duties, you could bring in more wheat.
12:04Inadequate border control mechanisms, especially on the EU's external border, that is, the Polish border, and partly the Slovak and Romanian borders, created very profitable opportunities for corruption, especially for the Ukrainian side.
12:18Everyone profited from this arrangement, except EU farmers and consumers. At a later point, after 2022, they relaxed these controls even more.
12:27You could bring in anything you liked. All to give material support to Ukraine. All for Ukraine.
12:33Polish farmers, other European farmers too, but especially Polish farmers, were so eager to support Ukraine that they ignored this completely.
12:40Only when the economic impact became apparent, not only in Poland, but also in other countries, the Spanish didn't complain, of course, because they always needed more.
12:48But the Germans, French, Slovaks, Romanians, and us Poles, our agricultural markets were flooded with Ukrainian grain.
12:57Not from Ukrainian farmers, of course, but from international investment funds, whose capital is in the US, or in the Netherlands, or whatever.
13:04We understand all of that. But the markets were destabilized. And, of course, European farmers ended up paying the price.
13:12Polish farmers, in particular, paid a high price. That's when protective mechanisms were created, at least in our five countries of the old Eastern Bloc.
13:20Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, Poland, and the Czech Republic. We introduced a blocking tariff mechanism.
13:26It worked pretty well, to be honest, and they had to find other ways to export Ukrainian grain, such as through Black Sea ports and through Romania.
13:35This approach has somehow managed to contain market disruption to this day.
13:39As you said, starting on June 5th, we will be going back to the old mechanism that was in place before 2022 and relied on import quotas.
13:47Look, if the European market, the Polish market, has to compete with international investment funds and their Ukrainian products, we are not going to be able to hold onto anything.
13:56Poland doesn't have, and remember, this is the EU's external border, we don't have working control or monitoring systems.
14:03What is a trade quota? It is a set amount that you are supposed to trade within.
14:07I'm telling you again, these corrupt schemes are not what we need to protect our markets right now.
14:13To directly answer your question about whether anything has changed, the government changed how they lie to their own people, to the farmers.
14:21But the actual situation is the same as before.
14:24Mr. Talwinski, you have anticipated my next question, the next topic I wanted to raise.
14:31In general, if you want to understand what is happening, look at who is making money on this.
14:38Therefore, returning to the topic of duties on Russian and Belorussian fertilizers, to the fact that, as you said, the European Union plans to move fertilizer production to Ukraine and organize it there,
14:50I have a hard time believing that Brussels is so concerned about Kyiv's interests and about Kyiv making money on this.
14:58In your opinion, who will ultimately make money on this decision?
15:02It is already clear that it will not be Polish farmers, not the average Polish citizen, who, on the contrary, will come to the stew and understand that he has become poorer because of this decision.
15:14So, who will ultimately come out on top?
15:17To answer this, you have to understand how propaganda works, psychologically, in different EU countries.
15:25It's like, let's start by thinking about the Ukraine conflict and Polish society.
15:29The Polish government, I get it, they're playing their own game.
15:32But why society? Polish society was helping Ukrainians.
15:35And this makes us Poles look really bad, because we're not doing it out of some great love for Ukrainians, but only because Ukrainians are fighting Russians.
15:43Well, you need somewhere to channel your phobias and hangups, so in this situation, you help the Ukrainians.
15:49It shows how shameless, how inhumane society is being.
15:53And I'm saying it again, not just the authorities.
15:55Because, listen friends, if societies in EU countries were healthy, no government would be doing what they're doing now in this Ukraine conflict.
16:02French, Polish, German governments, and so on, they wouldn't dare.
16:08But there's public consent for what I see as using Ukraine and Ukrainians.
16:13Because they're acting out, and I'll never accept this, they're acting out their own phobias and interests with Ukrainian blood.
16:20Same thing here with this question.
16:22If we're talking about some regular Ukrainian citizen, what is he going to get from the EU blocking fertilizer exports and slapping tariffs on Russian goods?
16:31Nothing. It's just about getting money, any way you can, arming Ukrainians more.
16:36So these Ukrainians, and this is the only motivation, the only goal, so the Ukrainians keep bleeding, keep fighting Russia.
16:42And the fertilizer thing, that's just to weaken Russia's economy, so they don't have weapons to finish off Ukraine.
16:48This is criminal. Society is taking a criminal attitude towards Ukrainians, and towards Russians too, obviously.
16:55Because, like I said, these are massive problems that need collective therapy.
17:00Mr. Tolvensky, thank you very much for your time and for this very interesting conversation.
17:06I hope that we will have the opportunity to talk again soon.
17:10And thank you very much. I'm glad I was able to get our rational perspective out there today,
17:16share the Polish farmer's side of things.