Thousands of Russian and Belarusian truckers wait to leave the EU in the face of looming sanctions
Thousands of Russian and Belarusian truck drivers are queuing up their trucks at the border crossings between Poland and Belarus in order to leave the European Union. The fifth package of sanctions against Russia and Belarus, which entered into force on April 9, prohibited transport companies from both countries from operating in the European Union, with minor exceptions (transportation of food, medicine, mail and energy). The new legislation gave truckers seven days to leave the EU.
The problem is that, with a limited number of border crossings operating between Poland and Belarus, waiting times are stratospheric: according to the Polish Tax Agency, quoted by public television TVN, this Friday morning around a thousand trucks were waiting their turn to pass through the Bobrowniki border crossing, with an estimated waiting time of 56 hours. In Koroszczyn, a little further south, the deadline was 33 hours. A third border crossing, Kudnica, has been closed since the winter, when Belarus orchestrated a migration crisis to pressure the EU. Other countries bordering Russia are experiencing similar situations. At the Silene border crossing between Latvia and Belarus, waiting times for trucks reached 104 hours last Saturday, and are now around 25 hours.
As stated by the head of the Polish Tax Agency in the Podlaquia region (border with Belarus), Maciej Czarnecki, to TVN, “all vehicles that reach the queue before midnight will be able to leave without problems.” However, others are more skeptical. According to statements by Aliaksandr Kuuschynau, from the Gurtam GPS truck control firm, to the British newspaper Financial Times, there are around 10,000 Russian and Belarusian trucks still in the EU “and they are not going to come back in the next few days”. Also to the Financial Times, the president of the Polish trucking association ZMPD, has stated that “a benign solution must be sought, because any aggressive reaction at the border will instantly provoke a response against our trucks, returning from markets such as Mongolia, Kazakhstan or Uzbekistan “. (THE COUNTRY)
