1000’s of lorries have been stopped on the border amid an ongoing dispute between Warsaw and Kiev
Poland will insist that the EU restore a allow system for Ukrainian truckers crossing its border, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki mentioned on Monday. Polish truckers have already been blocking crossing factors since early November, arguing that they’re being undercut by their Ukrainian counterparts.
Earlier than February 2022, Ukrainian haulage corporations needed to get hold of permits to enter and function inside the EU. This allow scheme was scrapped shortly after the battle started, in an try to carry much-needed income into Ukraine’s transport trade.
Nonetheless, Morawiecki instructed reporters on Monday that Warsaw “will very strongly and unequivocally demand the restoration of transport permits for Ukrainian drivers.”
At a gathering of EU transport ministers later that day, Polish Deputy Infrastructure Minister Rafal Weber mentioned the abolition of permits, coupled with an digital queuing system requiring Polish drivers to attend as much as 14 days to return from Ukraine, had allowed Ukrainian corporations to grab a dominant share of the market, Poland’s IAR information company reported.
Poland’s request to reintroduce the permits was backed by Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Croatia, based on the report. Nonetheless, a spokesperson for the European Fee instructed IAR that there was “no chance” of reinstating the allow system.
The request got here a month after Polish truckers started a blockade of border crossing factors. The blockade resulted in a 40% lower within the quantity of Ukrainian freight passing via the border, the Ukrainian Economic system Ministry mentioned on Saturday. The protest was additionally joined in late November by Polish farmers, who’re already sad with low grain costs led to by low cost imports from Ukraine.
Ukrainian authorities opened a further border crossing on Monday to permit empty vans to return to Poland. Nonetheless, only some dozen autos have been allowed via the crossing, with Ukrainian Deputy Infrastructure Minister Sergei Derkach stating that extra can be allowed to move if the Polish blockade was lifted.
Poland has been one in every of Ukraine’s main backers within the EU, supplying Kiev with arms, accepting round 1.5 million Ukrainian refugees, and constantly advocating for extra sanctions on Moscow. Nonetheless, the transport dispute is the most recent in a sequence of current squabbles between Warsaw and Kiev. Essentially the most outstanding of those arguments occurred in September when Ukraine filed a now-suspended criticism to the World Commerce Group (WTO) over Poland and another EU states banning Ukrainian grain deliveries to guard their very own farmers’ incomes.
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