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Good morning. Spain’s parliamentary election potpourri continues to provoke more questions than answers, and has created a most unlikely kingmaker: fugitive Catalan “president” Carles Puigdemont, currently in Belgian exile as a member of the European parliament.
Today, we have news on Poland’s latest salvo against Ukrainian agricultural exports and a dispatch from Sicily, where the extreme summer heatwave has crippled the infrastructure.
Berry bad neighbours
EU agriculture ministers meet today to discuss gene editing techniques, cutting pesticide use, new rules on seed marketing — and Ukrainian strawberries, write Andy Bounds and Raphael Minder.
Context: Poland, together with Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Romania, is campaigning to block additional food imports from Ukraine. The five frontline states say a big jump in imports depressed prices for their own farmers, and Brussels’ measure to tackle this do not go far enough.
Back in April, the five countries agreed to lift unilateral import bans in exchange for guarantees that Ukrainian grain shipments would only transit through the five countries en route to other destinations.
Those measures expire on September 15, and the five want them to be prolonged and expanded to other crops.
Polish agriculture minister Robert Telus yesterday said that Poland wanted new measures to restrict soft fruit shipments, in particular frozen raspberries and strawberries. “We also want the scope of preventive measures to be flexible and subject to modifications in consultation with the European Commission,” Telus said.
The Polish-led request for an extension of import restrictions comes after Russia this month pulled out of the Black Sea grain deal, which has added to concerns in Poland and other EU border countries about neighbouring Ukraine seeking to send more farm exports their way instead.
Still, the atmosphere in the Brussels meeting room is expected to be pretty chilly, diplomats say. Poland has harangued other EU member states into backing ever tighter sanctions on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, at considerable cost to their own economies.
“Poland claims to be Ukraine’s best friend, but in the meantime is more concerned with protecting its own interests — particularly those of the ruling party — by catering to the rural electorate,” said a diplomat from another member state. The nationalist government in Warsaw faces a tight election in autumn.
New figures from the commission show that the volume of Ukrainian maize, wheat, sunflower seeds and rapeseed entering the five countries was just 13,000 tonnes in June, compared with a peak of 1.3mn tonnes in November. Significant stocks remain unsold in the EU states, though.
Several EU ministers are expected to attack the Polish position, but the commission itself is unlikely to want to pick a fight with Polish farmers ahead of the election for fear of inflaming anti-Brussels attitudes.
One frustrated diplomat pointed out that the commission has sole control over the restrictions, leaving the dissidents powerless.
Chart du jour: Downturn, again
A closely watched business survey has suggested the eurozone economy is shrinking. The purchasing managers’ index, a measure of activity at companies across the 20-country bloc, fell to an eight-month low in July.
Catania’s inferno
No water, no power, no airport: The city of Catania in Sicily is wrestling with hellish conditions this summer as Italy reels from an unprecedented heatwave with temperatures surpassing 40C, writes Giuliana Ricozzi.
Context: Large parts of the Mediterranean are suffering from record temperatures and wildfires as a consequence of climate change. This has hit the already fragile infrastructure in Sicily, leading to multiple service disruptions in its second-largest city of Catania.
After days of malfunctioning, Catania’s water network, which serves the city’s 300,000 citizens, collapsed this weekend following a fire at an electrical station, the city’s water company said. This comes on top of frequent blackouts resulting from the impact of extreme heat on the power grid.
The disruption of essential services has exasperated residents and business owners, with coffee bars shutting down and citizens filling up water tanks at public fountains.
Grid operators have been working to solve the issues, but it’s still unclear when water will flow through the pipes again.
Travellers are also having a terrible time. Catania’s airport, Italy’s fifth-largest serving some 10mn people last year, is working at reduced capacity after another fire more than a week ago. Most flights have been cancelled or moved to other airports in Sicily or the mainland.
The Italian government has blamed the open-ended disruption on bad management by the local operator and the civil aviation authority.
Industry minister Adolfo Urso said it was causing “serious damage to the production system of Catania and eastern Sicily”. Infrastructure minister Matteo Salvini will today hold a meeting to take stock of the situation.
For now, it might be advisable to book flights elsewhere.
What to watch today
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EU agriculture ministers meet in Brussels.
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Second day of EU industry ministers meeting in Bilbao, Spain
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