Border blockade: Poland urges EU to review agreement with Ukraine
Photo: Alvin Gajadhur, Polish Minister of Infrastructure, with representatives of striking carriers (gov.pl)
Poland's Minister of Infrastructure, Alvin Gajadhur, has requested the European Commission to appoint a committee to review the agreement between Ukraine and the EU, which suspended the obligation to obtain permits for drivers, announces the Polish government.
He also appealed to the Ukrainian government to disable the electronic queue system at least at two border crossings.
The Polish official met with representatives of the road transport industry, who are participating in the protest action on the Polish-Ukrainian border, blocking truck checkpoints.
Protesters refuse to expand the border blockade The Chairman of the Committee for the Protection of Carriers and Transport Employers of Poland, Waldemar Jaszczur, stated that the protesters have no intention of ending the strike.
"But to expand it to the next (points - ed.) crossing the border, we refused, although it was already being prepared. We are also ready to consider the possibility of softening the form of our protest if the Polish state strengthens effective control of trucks entering Poland," said a representative of the striking carriers.
According to him, the number of violations among Ukrainian drivers is "significant, and the involvement of state services, in our opinion, is still too little."
What Warsaw wants at the EU Transport Council meeting The meeting of the EU Transport Council will take place on December 4 in Brussels. The Polish side asks to include in the agenda "discussion of the consequences of the agreement between Ukraine and the EU, which has been in effect since July 1, 2022," the country's government said.
Before this, the Ministry of Infrastructure of Poland also appealed to the European Commission with a request to appoint a committee to review these consequences.
Situation on the Ukrainian-Polish border
Since November 6, the movement of freight transport has been restricted at four border crossing points on the Ukrainian-Polish border. The reason for the queues at the border was the strikes of Polish carriers. In the middle of the month, private carriers of such action rejected the joint proposals of the European Commission, Ukraine, and Poland and refused to end the strike. Their main demand is a return to the permit system for our country.
On November 27, the Polish authorities appealed to Ukraine with a proposal to regulate the situation at the border. Warsaw, in particular, called on Kyiv to "urgently take measures to fulfill the requirements of Polish carriers, for which the Ukrainian side is responsible."
Today, European Commissioner for Transport Adina Vălean criticized the reaction of the Polish authorities to the situation with the closure of checkpoints on the border with Ukraine by carriers, calling such a blockade "unacceptable."
