According to Polish publication Onet, Deputy Agriculture Minister Michał Kołodziejczak sabotaged Poland-Ukraine negotiations in Warsaw on 28 March by behaving inappropriately and lashing out at the Ukrainian delegation, making any understanding impossible.
“He gave the impression of being under the influence of certain substances: he kept running out of the room, and when he returned – he would start attacking us with renewed force,” said Alex Lissitsa, president of the Ukrainian Agribusiness Club, who participated in the negotiations, to Ukrainska Pravda.
Polish association representatives confirming Kołodziejczak’s erratic behavior to Onet remained anonymous, but one said he “kept going in and out, reading his phone, doing anything but talking.”
“When we were nearing the end of the negotiations and Polish Minister of Agriculture Sikierski briefly left the room, Michał suddenly lashed out at the representatives of the Ukrainian delegation. We know how Michał can behave, but for someone meeting him for the first time, it could have been a shock… It looked bad, because after Kołodziejczak’s ‘performance’ the thread of understanding was lost,” commented one of the meeting’s participants.
Meanwhile, Michał Kołodziejczak called the statements about his inappropriate behavior “an attempt to discredit him.”
“The meeting was long, we were all tired, we’re just human,” he told Onet.
The negotiations were focused on resolving two key issues: unblocking the Ukrainian border that had been blocked by Polish farmers protesting against Ukrainian agricultural imports, and facilitating Ukrainian export of agricultural goods to Poland.
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