Poland and Ukraine agree on extra permits for cross-border road freight
More trucks from Ukraine will be able to drive to and via Poland in 2022. The same goes for the Polish road freight companies in the case of Ukraine. This is a result of a consensus reached by the ministries of the infrastructure of both countries. Currently, the parties are working on a joint action plan to put the arrangements into practice.
30,000 extra permits for the Ukrainian road freight companies will be issued by the authorities of Poland and the same number by Ukraine for the Polish carriers. Such a settlement was reached at the meeting of the deputy ministers of the infrastructure of Ukraine and Poland Mustafa-Masi Nayem and Rafal Weber to take place on 15 February in Lviv. To implement the arrangement, the ministries must develop the relevant action plan by the end of February 2022 and adjust it with the customs, border and other dedicated bodies.
Of the agreed amount, up to 20,000 extra permits should be issued by the dedicated bodies of the two countries by the end of August: 20,000 transit permits for Ukrainian road hauliers by Poland and 20,000 universal permits for Polish hauliers. An additional batch of 10,000 extra permits will be issued in November 2022. In total, the road freight companies from each country will be able to use up to 190,000 permits for cross-border traffic.
Some figures
For several years in a row, road freight permits were one of the most difficult issues in bilateral relations. In late 2021, they even became a driving force for rail freight tensions between Ukraine and Poland. It is worth noting that the maximum number of permits for the Ukrainian road hauliers, 200,000 items, were issued by Poland in 2018. Then the number was reduced to 160,000 permits. The Ukrainian logistics companies consider such quantity inefficient. Poland issued 15,000 extra permits in 2019 and 4,711 extra permits in 2020 for the Ukrainian hauliers.
Read more about the issue:
Trucks vs trains: what is behind rail freight tensions between Poland and Ukraine