WARSAW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 04th August, 2023) Poland has asked the European Union for over 1 billion Euros ($1 billion) to enable it pay for the overhaul of transport infrastructure as it struggles to increase grain export from Ukraine, Poland's ambassador to the EU Andrzej Sados said.
National Polish news agency PAP cited the diplomat as saying on Friday that Warsaw requested 500 million euros in funding from Brussels to increase the capacity of truck terminals on the border with Ukraine and an equal sum to modernize rail links with Ukraine.
"For one-and-a-half years we have been looking to increase Ukrainian grain transit to third countries, primarily to Africa. But we need investment and we have reiterated our concrete requests to the European Commission," Sados said.
The EU has sought to transport more Ukrainian grain by land since Russia quit a 2022 deal with Ukraine that safeguarded Ukrainian food exports through the Black Sea. Cheap Ukrainian grain has been clogging warehouses in neighboring EU countries, undercutting local prices and threatening farmers' livelihoods.
Russia argued that the Turkey- and UN-brokered grain deal was a package of measures that also guaranteed Russian food and fertilizer exports, but that part of the agreement was never implemented.
