Cooperation continues to prevent resumption of border blockade
A meeting of the Working Group of the Ministries of Infrastructure of Poland and Ukraine was held to further cooperate in preventing a possible recurrence of border blockades.
A regular online meeting of the joint working group of the Ministry of Communities, Territories and Infrastructure of Ukraine and the Ministry of Infrastructure of Poland was held. The main goal of the meeting was to analyze the situation with truck crossings and assess the effectiveness of the measures taken to unblock the border.
Serhiy Derkach, Deputy Minister of Community Development, Territories and Infrastructure, emphasized the importance of continuing the dialogue with Polish colleagues, in particular to prevent a possible recurrence of the border blockade. After the border was unblocked, the queues to leave Ukraine disappeared, but questions remain about the effectiveness of the implementation of the memorandums of understanding on capacity at the three unblocked crossing points. For example, the Krakivets-Korchova and Rava-Ruska-Hrebenne checkpoints are currently not operating at full capacity, which is 35% of the agreed capacity. At the same time, the percentage at the Yahodyn-Dorohusk crossing point exceeded 60%, and recently the number of trucks crossing the border to leave Ukraine has been exceeding the previously agreed upon figures and amounts to approximately 700 per day.
During the conversation with his Polish counterpart, Sergiy Derkach emphasized that there are no long queues to leave Ukraine. During the blockade, drivers and carriers waited for several weeks in an online queue, but now the situation has changed. Thanks to the eTruck service, carriers and drivers can manage their time. This queue applies to both loaded and empty vehicles.
However, long waiting times remain for trucks transporting goods of groups 1-24, which require phytosanitary and veterinary control by the competent Polish authorities. The waiting time in such queues can reach more than 10 days.
The Ukrainian-Polish border was unblocked on January 17 under an agreement between the Polish Ministry of Infrastructure and protesters after talks with the Ukrainian Ministry of Infrastructure. During this period, almost 20,000 trucks crossed the three unblocked checkpoints to leave Ukraine, which is up from 15,000 trucks leaving Ukraine through the three checkpoints in December last year.
