Ukraine Grain Bans Show European Union May Already Have Ceased To Exist

The Polish word for awkward, niezręczny, would be an apt description of a situation in which two members of the European Union openly are openly flouting Brussels seemingly because they know they can do so without consequence. Poland and Hungary are the countries sparring with the EU in this latest pick-up game that pits national interests against a monster bureaucracy, and unsurprisingly the kerfuffle stems from Ukraine. Warsaw and Budapest have had their fill of Ukrainian grain, while the EU, overshadowed by Britain and America in its support for Kyiv, is flirting with irrelevance with springtime fervor. Poland and Hungary announced over the weekend that they would ban imports of Ukrainian agricultural products — cereal grains but also produce, meat, dairy products, eggs, and alcohol of agricultural origin — as well as the transit of goods from Ukraine destined for other European countries. The ban, which is to stay in place until the end of June, was triggered by complaints and protests from farmers who say their products are being edged out by cheaper Ukrainian grain flooding the market.That raised some hackles at Brussels. A spokesman for the European Commission said, “We are requesting further information from the competent authorities in order to be able to evaluate the measures. It is important to underline that trade policy is the exclusive competence of the EU and, therefore, unilateral actions are not acceptable.”Yet Poland and Hungary clearly consider their measures to be an economic imperative, and by Monday there were reports that Bulgaria would be joining in the ban. The root of the problem is, of course, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which disrupted export routes and led to huge amounts of grain ending up in central Europe. A deal brokered by the UN and Turkey lets Ukraine export grain by sea despite a Russian blockade, but the Russians are reportedly deliberately slow with their inspections.Not surprisingly, the Polish and Hungarian moves were met with dismay at Kyiv. According to a statement from Ukraine’s agriculture ministry, “At present, unilateral drastic actions will not accelerate the positive resolution of the situation.”Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Poland has emerged as one of Ukraine’s staunchest allies, a contrast to the sometimes tepid response of bigger players on the block like France and Germany. President Zelensky has even suggested that in the future there could be something of an invisible border between Ukraine and Poland. This makes the Polish participation in the ban all the more surprising. The same cannot be said for Hungary, whose populist prime minister Viktor Orbán has often found himself at loggerheads with both Washington and the EU over support for Ukraine. Last week, in an interview with the Hungarian radio station Kossuth, Mr. Orbán was at it again, saying, “Ukraine is an economically nonexistent country. As soon as the United States and the European Union decide to stop financing the Ukrainian state, the war will end.”The dust-up underscores the fractured state of the European Union, whose standing on the geopolitical stage got a sucker punch from Brexit, from which it is clearly still reeling. It is telling that Turkey, an autocratic country ever on the periphery of the Continent, was instrumental in working out the present grain deal — possibly Eurocrats lacked the requisite savoir-faire to pull it off. While most Europeans are inured to EU incompetence, the joint Polish and Hungarian actions are unique in that they signal a rejection of Brussels’ diminishing authority in even mundane matters of trade. It is tantamount to California and Oregon negotiating a trade deal with Brazil without consulting Washington. The circuits are jamming in other EU institutions as well. A corruption scandal known colloquially as Qatargate that engulfed the European Parliament last December has not completely petered out, but there are signs that the investigation into the bribery of multiple members of the parliament, or MEPs, is losing steam. A case in point is a Greek MEP, Eva Kaili, who was implicated early on in a wide-ranging corruption probe that saw Belgian authorities pinpoint suitcases stuffed with cash totaling more than $1.5 million, allegedly of Qatari provenance, in the homes of MEPs around Brussels. Ms. Kaili and others are under investigation for taking bribes from Qatari officials who reportedly sought to polish Qatar’s image ahead of the FIFA World Cup and secure an open-skies airline deal. In January the alleged ringleader of the scheme, an Italian MEP, Pier Antonio Panzer, struck a plea deal with Belgian investigators. All suspects who had been arrested have already been released and have to wear electronic monitoring tags as does Ms. Kaili, who is now under house arrest only a few feet away from European Parliament offices. Ms. Kaili’s charges of participation in a criminal organization, corruption, and money laundering still stand. The status of her parliamentary immunity is unclear. But she has told Greek newspapers that she did not actually touch any of the cash found in the suitcase at her home, a line of argument likely to be used by her attorney as he seeks to have her home confinement lifted. In the meantime, as a “non-attached” MEP, the telegenic 44-year-old still draws a monthly income of nearly $11,000. Even though Ms. Kaili was stripped of her parliamentary vice-president role last year, she has largely been given sympathetic treatment in the European media. The European Commission head, Ursula Von der Leyen, has mostly dodged questions about her case and the Qatargate probe in general. The longer it stays in the news, the worse she looks. The clubby nature of the European Parliament reinforces the sagacity of Brexit and feeds growing anti-EU sentiment among the right-of-center parties in Poland, Italy, and France. It makes the Ukrainian desire to one day join the EU ring hollow — because at this rate, there may be nothing left to join. With Brussels in disarray, the heavy lifting that London and Washington are now doing with respect to not only the defense of Ukraine but to fending off threats from Communist China — where Ms. Von der Leyen recently traveled at European taxpayer expense for no apparent reason other than to kowtow — will not grow lighter any time soon.

Ukraine Grain Bans Show European Union May Already Have Ceased To Exist

Ukraine Grain Bans Show European Union May Already Have Ceased To Exist

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