Warsaw says the move is intended to protect local farmers
Poland has announced that it will keep a ban on Ukrainian food imports in place despite a new free trade deal between the EU and Kiev.
The EU-Ukraine pact, known as the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA), came into force on Wednesday. The agreement provides preferential access to EU markets for most Ukrainian goods, with the bloc’s sensitive agricultural sectors protected through quotas, according to the European Commission.
The new deal replaced Autonomous Trade Measures (ATMs), regulations adopted by Brussels after the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022 to enable grain and other agricultural goods from Ukraine to reach global markets. However, the massive inflow of cheap Ukrainian produce sparked widespread protests in Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, and other countries neighboring Ukraine, where farmers said they couldn’t compete with tariff-exempt goods.
Warsaw’s Ministry of Agriculture announced on Wednesday that it would not change its policy, stating: “In Poland, the indefinite ban on the import of wheat, corn, rapeseed, sunflower, and certain processed products from Ukraine remains in effect.”
According to the statement, the DCFTA does not fully reflect Poland’s proposals aimed at limiting the potential negative effects of Ukrainian imports on domestic farming, though it does include several mechanisms strengthening the protection of EU agricultural markets.
In a similar move, Warsaw is planning to seek protective measures from Brussels on Ukrainian steel imports, arguing that a glut of duty-free supply is threatening local producers, Bloomberg reported earlier this month, citing a Polish government official. Local producers demanded a government suspension after Imports of Ukrainian steel to Poland jumped by about half last year and rose another 27% in the first half of 2025.
Anti-Ukrainian sentiment has been rising in Poland, despite Warsaw’s vocal support for Kiev in its conflict with Russia, as bilateral relations have been undermined by several sources of friction. Apart from trade issues, growing discontent has been recorded regarding the mass influx of Ukrainian migrants as well as Kiev’s lionization of Ukrainian nationalist figures who were involved in massacres of Polish nationals during World War II.
