Poland – Since 6 November, Polish truckers have been demonstrating their dissatisfaction with the dumping by their Ukrainian counterparts. Several crossings are currently blocked by demonstrators at the Polish-Ukrainian border.

Unfair competition

Before it was the farmers, and now it is the Polish lorry drivers who feel that they are being subjected to unfair competition from their Ukrainian colleagues. The money.pl website quotes one of them as explaining: “Polish farmers are afraid of [Ukrainian] cheap grain, and we’re afraid of Ukrainian transport. We’ve been flooded by their lorries.”

The Polish transport industry fears that it, too, will have to fight a battle on unequal terms with Ukrainian companies. The situation has deteriorated over the past several weeks, and a blockade has been put in place on the Polish side of the border.

Polish truckers’ demands

The Polish hauliers’ main demand is to end the current permit-free access for Ukrainian truckers within the EU. However, both Kiev and Brussels maintain that this demand cannot be met.
The Ukrainian border service has announced that the Uhrinyiv checkpoint, currently reserved for cars and buses, will be opened for empty heavy goods vehicles weighing more than 7.5 tonnes from 1am on Monday.
Towards a resolution of the conflict?
The border service said that the opening of Uhrinyiv is the first step in a series of measures aimed at unblocking the border, reducing queues and increasing the capacity of the Ukrainian-Polish border.
Although Ukraine admitted that it had agreed with Poland on some measures that could potentially ease pressure on the blockaded border crossings, the main demands of the protesters have not yet been addressed.
A problem that doesn’t just concern Poland
The competition from Ukrainian truckers is ruining hundreds of Hungarian companies, according to the organisers. Cars will be allowed through, but only 2 trucks per hour will be allowed to cross the border in one direction.
Hungarian lorry drivers are joining their Polish and Slovak colleagues in organising a demonstration at the Ukrainian border. The truckers plan to slow down traffic at one of the priority crossing points on the main road 4 between Záhony and Csap until 31 December. So far, the traffic of cars and buses is not restricted by demonstrators, but only 2 trucks per hour are allowed through the blockade in each direction.