An influential alliance of Polish farmers could throw a spanner in the works for the formation of a liberal-left coalition government in Warsaw. They have outlined their demands for politicians to scrap aspects of the anti-meat agenda.
Two weeks have passed since Poland’s parliamentary elections, and the dust has yet to properly settle. The elections saw a sudden surge for a centrist agrarian party, giving the opposition enough seats to oust the ruling PiS government in favour of a pro-EU coalition led by former European Council President Donald Tusk.
Agricultural issues played a major role in the election race. PiS’ traditional grip on rural voters was weakened by a grain crisis caused by excessive Ukrainian imports.
It may be Christmas before Tusk’s anti-PiS government is inaugurated in Warsaw, as farmer groups now push to win assurances that any new administration will not pursue anti-meat policies.
The Agricultural Twelve, “Rolnicza Dwunastka,” a powerful lobby group for Polish farmers, issued twelve key demands last week to all political parties in Poland. These included asking that politicians not impose cuts to livestock numbers or ban ritual slaughter practices.
The demands have split the anti-PiS coalition between pro- and anti-meat factions. Socialist politicians have already rejected many of the demands.
Andrzej Szejna, an MP with the progressive Lewica party, dismissed most of the demands as “outdated,” leading to fears that any new government in Poland may pursue an anti-meat agenda to the detriment of Poland’s farming community. The only party so far to fully back the demands by farmers is PiS, keen to solidify its position among the agricultural community.
Across Europe, agricultural producers are on edge thanks to cutbacks in meat production. The issue has already inspired a flurry of protests in the Netherlands and led to the electoral rise of the populist BBB party, which represents farmers’ interests.
Elsewhere, Poland’s would-be prime minister Donald Tusk travelled to Brussels with an eye to unlock European Commission funding withheld from Poland as part of a split between Eurocrats and the conservative PiS government.