High-Profile Scandal Over Belarusian Tractors Breaks Out In Poland
25- 20.01.2025, 12:53
- 30,598
Seven thousand vehicles may be seized from farmers.
The Warmińsko-Mazurska Agricultural Chamber of Poland is the first to make a statement on reviewing the issue of seizing ‘Belarus’ tractors from farmers.
As reported by the profile resource of Farmer.pl, the board of the Warmińsko-Mazurska Agricultural Chamber has appealed to the National Council of Agricultural Chambers with a request for urgent interference in the issue of cancelling decisions on the de-registration of MTZ. The courts of almost all voivodships of Poland are currently involved in the de-registration of the machinery that was registered by farmers after 1 January 2016, following an order from the prosecutor's office.
What happened is that the prosecutor's office discovered after almost ten years that the Belarusian machinery does not have certificates of compliance with the environmental standards on emissions, which came into force on that date. Therefore, the vehicles could not be registered a priori. Nevertheless, about 7 thousand units successfully passed this procedure, being registered by sellers as second-hand tractors, machinery or those imported from the countries where they had been tested for compliance with environmental requirements by the first importing country - Lithuania, Hungary and Romania. The courts support the prosecutor's office that the registration was illegal and therefore these tractors should be taken out of service. They have made such judgements on a number of applications, which have already been confirmed by the Supreme Administrative Court in Warsaw.
According to Farmer.pl, the prosecutor's office filed 815 complaints with the judicial authorities in the Podlaskie Voivodeship alone. And the total amount of vehicles that farmers may lose is estimated at around 7,000 tractors.
‘Why should farmers suffer because of the officials and sellers’ mistakes? They have bought their machinery in good faith, the one legally registered in Poland, which was an economically justified choice for them. This is a crucial working tool for many of them - its loss means paralysis of the farm. Not the officials or the importer, but farmers are now forced to scrap tractors bought on credit, often as the main equipment on the farm,' says the appeal of the Board of the Warmińsko-Mazurska Agricultural Chamber.
Given the scale of the problem, Polish media believe that the scandalous affair may be used by presidential candidates in their election campaigns. Some publications also demand an investigation into who allowed the registration of such machinery. And whether he did it deliberately, making money in the process. And the suppliers from what other countries took advantage of this loophole.
On the Belarusian side, two subsidiaries of Minsk Tractor Plant - the Polish company of MTZ Belarus Traktor and Hungarian Belarus Traktor KFT - were importing tractors to Poland at that time. Thanks to their activities, Minsk Tractor Plant became one of the top 6 players in this market in the late 2010s and early 2020s. The peak of sales of MTZ Belarus Traktor, in particular, was in 2021, when it sold machinery worth 151 million PLN. In 2022, the sales reduced by half, and in 2023 they were close to zero. Since 2023, MTZ Belarus Traktor has been in liquidation. This is connected with the inclusion of the company in the Polish sanctions list, which led to the freezing of assets and exclusion from all tenders in the country.
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