A grain glut leaves some Eastern European countries caught between solidarity with Ukraine and survival.

After more than a year of impressive European unity in support of Ukraine, the seeds of discord are being piled in the barn of Robert Vieru, a Romanian farmer with 500 tons of wheat and 250 tons of sunflower seeds now unable to sell because of cut prices. Ukrainian competition.

A glut of Ukrainian cereals and other products has almost halved the price for the results of Mr. Vieru’s labor and left the farmers across Eastern and Central Europe – and the government that, most of them face elections this year or next – caught between solidarity with Ukraine and their own survival.

“I am sad for them, but my heart is broken for myself,” Mr Vieru said of the Ukrainians living near the border in Romania’s Danube delta, as he opened the sliding doors of the concrete cage, filled to capacity. with items that could not be sold last year. harvest.

Prices have been driven so low by the flood of cheap food from Ukraine, he said, that selling would mean getting less than he paid to produce his crops.

The suffering of Mr. Vieru, who was welcomed by farmers in Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Bulgaria, flowed from the unintended consequences of good intentions.

Market forces, driven by profiteering, have turned ambitious efforts by the European Union to help Ukraine export crops and reduce what the UN described last year as an “unprecedented global hunger crisis” into a source of political division and economic distress in Europe. Eastern countries used to be communist.

The mess hasn’t eliminated strong public support for Ukraine, at least not yet, but it has created an opening for right-wing groups that favor Russia, causing serious friction in the European bloc and mood in the once-fortified region. usually unflagging support for Ukraine. The European Commission’s proposal of 100 million euros to compensate farmers has done little to ease these tensions.

With the exception of Hungary, whose populist prime minister, Viktor Orban, has often sided with Russia, the countries most likely to face the competition include Ukraine’s strongest European ally. Poland, Romania and Slovakia have provided weapons and military training.

But over the past week, all five countries have imposed strict bans on Ukrainian wheat imports, with only Romania stopping short of an outright ban.

“We are the last people standing,” Romania’s transport minister, Sorin Grindeanu, said in an interview.