Ukrainian truckers forced to live at Yahodyn border checkpoint, Poles lack convoys for trucks

This was reported by the Volyn Customs Office.

“Queues to leave Ukraine in Yahodyn have really only gotten worse after Poland decided to ban exports and started the procedure for allowing agricultural goods in transit. Neither the customs, nor the border guards, nor the developers of the pilot project of the electronic queue expected this,” Volyn Customs Office reported. 

The Yahodyn checkpoint is participating in the e-Queue pilot project. The e-queue took into account the need for veterinary control for a separate list of agricultural products. However, the queue of trucks for veterinary control is only growing, as no more than a dozen trucks pass it per day.

Instead, cargoes with food products from the general queue were subject to a special transit procedure. They do not require veterinary control, as they have been industrially processed, but were included in the list of goods prohibited for import to Poland.

“Arguing that there are limited resources to convoy these goods on Polish roads, the neighboring party returns the exports already cleared in Yahodyn. In this case, the driver is forced to wait for a new convoy to form, actually living in an unsuitable checkpoint. Over the past day, we have counted 24 such vehicles returned from Dorohusk, loaded with oil or starch,” Volyn Customs Office reported, adding that it is doing everything possible to send them back to the Polish side as soon as possible and assists drivers in solving their everyday problems.

The customs office hopes that the cargo convoy procedure will be revised in the near future.

• Since February of this year, Polish farmers have repeatedly blocked checkpoints on the border with Ukraine. They claimed that Ukrainian grain, which was supposed to be transiting through Poland, was entering the Polish market, causing prices to plummet.

• On April 7, Ukraine agreed to stop exporting grain to Poland, leaving only transit. However, on April 15, official Warsaw approved a ban not only on the import of Ukrainian grain and other food products to Poland, but also on transit through Poland. A spokesman for the European Commission said that unilateral actions by EU member states on trade are unacceptable.

• On April 18, as a result of negotiations that lasted two days, it was decided to unblock transit through Poland to European ports for Ukrainian agricultural products.

• On April 18, it became known that Poland would receive EUR 30 million in aid from the EU amid the crisis with Ukrainian grain. 

• Vitalii Kulyk, director of the Center for Civil Society Research, believes that Ukraine is responsible for the oversupply of agricultural products in Eastern Europe.

• On April 21, Poland unblocked the movement of Ukrainian agricultural products in transit to Polish seaports, the Netherlands, and other EU countries. Later, the Polish side clarified that only those trucks with agricultural products that have enough fuel in the tank to cross the territory of Poland without stopping at gas stations would be allowed to transit.