Unknown farmers’ organisation goes on hunger strike at Polish parliament

As Polish farmers continue to occupy the country’s parliament building, an organisation no one has ever heard of has launched a hunger strike, leading some to wonder if it has anything to do with farmers and the government to suggest it is likely linked to the opposition PiS party’s EU election campaign.

With the support of MPs from the right-wing opposition parties PiS (ECR) and Confederation, a number of farmers’ organisations launched a protest at the parliament building in Warsaw, demanding a meeting with Prime Minister Donald Tusk.

One of the protesting organisations is the Orka movement, whose activists insist on meeting Tusk and have started a hunger strike. In Polish, “Orka” means a killer whale and a plough.

The problem is that nobody knows about the movement, its members or whether it really has anything to do with farmers.

“Ninety per cent of the farmers open their eyes widely (with astonishment) and wonder what an organisation it is. I don’t know those farmers nor that association,” Wiesław Gryn, a farmer from the Deceived Village (Oszukana Wieś) movement, a relatively new but one of the most popular Polish farmers’ movements, told the Money.pl economic news outlet.

Part of PiS’ EU election campaign?

Even the Agriculture Ministry is unfamiliar with the Orka movement.

“It’s news to me. Nice name, by the way,” Deputy Minister Stefan Krajewski of the Polish People’s Party (PSL, EPP) told the media.

In his view, however, the farmers’ protest in the parliament is inspired by the opposition party by PiS, as a part of their campaign in the EU elections.

“It’s a political protest. The PiS and the Confederation must have brought the farmers (to the parliament buiding to block the work of the parliament,” he said, adding that “it’s not a coincidence that (the farmers) were admitted by the opposition parties.”

“The Orka agricultural union only exists in the Sejm at the moment. No one knure what their demands are,” another Deputy Minister, Michał Kołodziejczak (Civic Coalition, EPP) told Rzeczpospolita daily.

He accused former agriculture minister Robert Telus (PiS, ECR) and another PiS MP, Piotr Polak, is are running in the EU elections, of orchestrating the farmers’ protests to support their election campaign.

These farmers are voicing their opposition to the European Green Deal and the European Union, “which is PiS’ election manifesto,” Kołodziejczak said.

“They do not want modernisation or change, they want to preserve the Polish countryside (as it is now), and farmers to be identified with backwardness. It is creating a negative image of Polish farmers,” he added.

Members of the Orka movement say they are calling for the European Green Deal to be scrapped and for Poland’s eastern border to be closed to the influx of Ukrainian agriculture and food which is disrupting the domestic market.

“Nothing about the Green Deal is fine to me. I don’t like the zero-emission (policy). I can breathe with the air I have now, I don’t care,” one of the members said, as quoted by the Money.pl.

However, he denied having any links with any of the political parties. “We came here as common farmers. No party controls us,” he stressed.

(Aleksandra Krzysztoszek | Euractiv.pl)

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