(LifeSiteNews) — This week has seen major tensions arise over the export of Ukrainian grains to the EU. With more countries now effectively banning the sale of Ukrainian grain, the east-west split in the European Union is once again in the news.
Four EU nations have refused to accept massive amounts of cheap Ukrainian wheat, maize and sunflower seeds, which is instead being driven overland. Meanwhile a nightmare bottleneck is building up in the Black Sea gateway ports of NATO-ally Turkey.
Easing the bottleneck
The creation of a supply corridor for Ukrainian grain through four Black Sea ports was arranged by Turkey with Russia, under the auspices of the United Nations. Ostensibly to forestall a global food shortage, it has resulted in strained relations between EU member states and their European managers, whose pro-war policies are enacted regardless of cost.
Ukraine has supplied almost 28 million tons of grain through this arrangement so far, in response to a bottleneck in grain supplies announced in Ukraine last year. A global food crisis was touted, with Russia being blamed for starving countries such as Egypt of essential supplies.
Despite this, however, the promised grain has not been supplied to Africa, Pakistan and the Middle East, but has remained in mainly Eastern European nations. The farmers of Poland, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Hungary have complained about the flooding of the market with cheap Ukrainian grains.
Chemically polluted grain
Yet the issue is not one only of oversupply. The grain itself may be unfit for human consumption.
The Slovak Agriculture Ministry announced last week that tests of 1,500 tons of grain from Ukraine in one mill in Slovakia revealed it contained a pesticide banned in the EU. As a result, the Slovak authorities decided to test all Ukrainian grain in the country and temporarily banned its processing.
The heavy use of banned chemicals in Ukraine is just one measure used to create cheap, bumper harvests prohibited in the EU.
A narrative collapse
The original narrative was that the U.S. and its allies in the EU must seek a deal with the UN to guarantee the continued supply of Ukrainian grain to needy developing nations. The deal was negotiated by Turkey with Russia last July, and was extended for another sixty days on March 18th.
What has happened instead is doubly embarrassing to the authors of this story.
Firstly, the farmers of near-Ukrainian EU nations obviously object to the import and sale of a cheaper – and illegal – product, which will force their own prices down.
Secondly, the reason these supplies are being transited overland – now being transported through Poland in sealed containers – is because of the logjam in the entrance to the Black Sea – through Turkish waters.
NATO and EU tensions
The grain fiasco reveals deep-seated antagonisms between the member states of the EU – especially in the East – and the policies of the European Commission. The EU seeks to maintain the war at any cost, finding a further 100 million euros this week to compensate farmers – and will go so far as to buy grain which would be considered unfit for human or animal consumption in large volume.
Opposing the import of chemically polluted foodstuffs has been criticized by the EU, with a Commission spokesman saying to Euractiv on April 18th “…it is important to underline that trade policy is of EU exclusive competence and, therefore, unilateral actions are not acceptable.”
Regime change as a result?
The welfare of nations and of their people is not the concern of the technocrats. The EU is playing a dangerous game in pitting the interest of nations against its policy of unlimited support for Ukraine, which included the suspension of legal controls – and tariffs – over grain imports in 2022.
According to this Wednesday’s issue of The Guardian:
In May 2022, the EU allowed Kiev to export its grain stocks through the bloc after the closure of the Black Sea shipping lanes following Russia’s invasion fueled a global food crisis. Member states agreed to import certain products from Ukraine without quantitative restrictions, and without customs and official inspection. [emphasis added]
What else – apart from grain of questionable quality – may have transited through this overland route to Europe and beyond is unknown. No one was checking. The result of the suspension of law and order in this regard may have imminent political consequences for the four nations refusing Ukrainian grain.
EU changes course
The European Commission was initially committed to effectively forcing its own nations to import illegal, tax-free grain in enormous volume. Following strong protest from these four member states, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, Bulgaria and Romania, it has stepped back:
An EU official said this would only allow the grains to enter the five countries from Ukraine if they were set for export to other EU members or to the rest of the world. This measure would last until the end of June.
Three of the countries enacting the blockade will soon hold elections, and the fourth – Bulgaria – remains in political deadlock. Its fourth election in two years has resulted in another stalemate, following the collapse of its pro-Western government in June 2022.
Meanwhile, the success of the Turkish initiative, essentially brokered to bolster Turkey’s diplomatic and strategic status, has resulted in a bottleneck in the entrance to the Black Sea.
The Turkish bottleneck
According to Ship and Bunker, the situation for shipments in the Black Sea is dire. This is due entirely to the sheer volume of shipping wishing to enter the Black Sea – resulting in severe delays.
More than 300 vessels at any time wait at the Turkish straits to go up to Ukrainian ports for cargo ops, sometimes for months.
The appeal of the Black Sea corridor has seen trade diverted to it from other global routes. Both sides in the war have accused one another of disrupting ship inspections, with the Russians blamed by Ukraine, and Ukraine and the United Nations themselves culpable from the Russian point of view.
The Russians say they may not cooperate beyond May 18, leaving commercial shipping at risk, unless “hidden sanctions” on their own grain and fertilizer exports are lifted.
Turkey’s leader Erdogan is also facing re-election, and is faced with a diplomatic quandary to rival that of the European Commission.
These political tensions highlight two major features of contemporary power – the importance of maintaining a propaganda narrative alongside the obvious contradiction between the interests of the powerful and the people they manage.
Guaranteeing the supply chains of corruption
What is the point of exporting grain which no one wants? It is a means of funneling money into Ukraine. If this seems scandalous, consider the recent explanation offered by Seymour Hersh – for the visit of the CIA director to Kiev in January 2023.
This surprise visit saw CIA head William Burns travel to Ukraine for a private audience with Zelensky. Presumably, what had to be said was sufficiently sensitive – and urgent – to require a long flight and a face to face audience.
What was the reason? Severe corruption. Yet the actions of the CIA director may surprise you.
$400 million dollar theft
The US has been providing money to Ukraine to buy diesel, in order to keep its tanks and armor fueled. It has come to light that Zelensky has been buying cheap blackmarket diesel and skimming off the profits.
How much? An estimated $400 million dollars has been stolen in this way – through diesel purchases alone. Zelensky allegedly managed this by buying the diesel from the Russians.
Did Director Burns object to any of this? No. According to Hersh, the Director of the CIA flew to Kiev to warn Zelensky that he was upsetting his own army by grabbing too much loot.
His message to the Ukrainian president, I was told by an intelligence official with direct knowledge of the meeting, was out of a 1950s mob movie. The senior generals and government officials in Kiev were angry at what they saw as Zelensky’s greed, so Burns told the Ukrainian president, because “he was taking a larger share of the skim money than was going to the generals.
A narrative of lies
The narratives we are offered for consumption are as dubious as Ukrainian grain. They create complications for politicians, as they conflict directly with the criminal reality they are intended to conceal. Much of the talk about a proxy war with Russia has been about containment – that the conflict must not spread beyond the borders of Ukraine.
Yet the consequences of doing this kind of business is a two-way trade in burgeoning corruption. It has changed our own regime into one which sees the truth as an enemy of national security.
The strain over grain is another indication of where the interests of the management lie – in the maintenance of a racket dependent on a war, whose negotiated resolution must be avoided at all costs.