"EU-Ukraine agreement to be spoken" – a joint message by Polish, Hungarian, Slovak, Czech and Lithuanian carriers

The heads of transport organisations from 5 countries made a message to the European Commission and transport ministers from Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Lithuania. The letter points out that the European Union is destroying the interior markets of its associate States at the expense of Ukraine.

Jan Buczek (ZMPD, Poland), Zsolt Barna (MKFE, Hungary), Josef Melzer (Cesmad Bohemia, Czech Republic), Pavol Piestansky (Cesmad Slovakia) and Romas Austinskas (Linava, Lithuania) issued a message addressed to the president of the European Commission, Ursuli von der Leyen, EU Commissioner for Transport, Adina Valean, EU Commissioner for the interior Market, Thierry Breton, and Czech, Hungarian, Lithuanian, Slovak and Polish transport ministers, on the basis of which it is possible for Ukrainian transport operators to implement freely to the EU.

The following translation of the statement:

All the heads of transport organisations signed under this declaration represent the largest road transport organisations in their countries which are members of the global Road Transport Union (IRU). In total, they represent more than 8,000 companies employing more than 150,000 workers, but besides talk on behalf of the full commercial road transport sector in the countries most affected by the current situation.

We would like to begin by stressing that we are on the side of the Ukrainian people and powerfully condemn Russia's unprovoked and unwarranted military aggression against Ukraine. We are full aware of the hard situation of the citizens and businesses of Ukraine; we support all the assistance the European Union gives Ukraine. Many of our carriers have engaged in the transport of Ukrainian refugees and have been providing humanitarian aid since the first day of the conflict.

Nevertheless, we, as an EU community, are besides liable for the European interior market, including the transport industry. The applicable implementation of the EU-Ukraine agreement on the carriage of goods by road has far exceeded its first intentions and is presently causing serious problems in the EU market, undermining the competitiveness of EU road hauliers. The suspension of bilateral authorisations has led to a immense increase in EU transport by non-EU carriers.

Honest competition is undoubtedly beneficial, but only if the rules are equal for all players active and their compliance is enforced.

The bilateral agreements between the EU countries and Ukraine, which find the number of permits, are intended to keep a reasonable volume of transport that could operate Ukrainian carriers without harming the EU market. Their abolition is possible only after Ukraine has fulfilled circumstantial conditions. The premature abolition of permits and the anticipation of operating in certain exemptions led to a very hard and complex situation in which control capacity became severely limited. In addition to the massive increase in the number of bilateral operations, we besides see an increase in illegal cross-trade transport operations (third countries) on the Community market.

Most of us predicted specified a development, but our voice was not heard. This deficiency of communication led to protests, which we are dealing with, among others, on the Polish-Ukrainian border. This is simply a sign of frustration and a signal of the request to resume dialog immediately.

With all this in mind, we are demanding that all the decision-makers active terminate the EU-Ukraine agreement without hold or make crucial changes to it and let the implementation of the EU-Ukraine bilateral agreements to be restored. We are ready to discuss any reasonable proposal. However, we cannot imagine maintaining today's situation until June 2024, until the current arrangements are in force.

End of statement

Carrier protest

Polish carriers protest on the Polish-Ukrainian border in Dorohusk, Hrebenn and Korczowa from 6 November and announce that the protests will last until 3 January 2024. The organisers point out that if an agreement is reached that would consequence in their demands being taken into account, the protest can be shortened.

Protesters demand, among another things suspensions of licenses for companies that arose immediately after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine and carrying out their checks and separate queues for empty and cargo vehicles, which was practiced before the war. The current situation at the border causes stops of 10-12 days for empty vehicles. Transport manufacture representatives besides request that the anticipation of road transport business registration be limited by entities from countries not associate States of the European Union.

Before the war broke out About 180 1000 Ukrainian trucks and 120-140 1000 Polish trucks passed the border. At this point, it is estimated that about a million trucks pass the border. Excluding tripartite transport, i.e. those authorised, we have about 800,000 of them 400,000 should be performed by Polish carriers. These are real losses for the state budget," said Rafał Mekler, a typical of the protesting carriers.

Photo: europarl.europa.eu

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