Polish truckers block Ukraine border crossings over loss of business
WARSAW (Reuters) -Polish truckers blocked roads to three border crossings with Ukraine on Monday, authorities said, to protest against what they see as government inaction over a loss of business to foreign competitors during Russia's war on Ukraine.
Truckers from Ukraine have been exempt from seeking permits to cross the Polish border since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and firms from Russia and Belarus have been setting up Polish entities, the Polish truckers say.
Their demands include reimposing restrictions on the number of Ukraine-registered trucks entering Poland and a ban on transport companies with capital from outside the European Union, among others.
"We are protesting because of the disruptions in road transport to Polish carriers ... caused by the uncontrolled inflow of Belarusian, Russian and Ukrainian companies ... those with eastern capital," Karol Rychlik, a transport company owner and head of a trucker association said while protesting near the Dorohusk crossing.
Ukraine Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov confirmed that the Polish blockades were in place and said Kyiv believed the action "harms the interests and economies of both countries" and hindered farm exports.
"At the same time, we are ready for a constructive dialogue that will consider the interests of the carriers of both countries," Kubrakov wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
The truckers have compared their situation to Polish farmers, who won concessions from the government after complaining about a flood of cheap Ukrainian grain imports.
A Polish government spokesperson could not immediately be reached for comment.
The three affected border crossings on average see several hundred trucks passing in each direction per day, data from Poland's Border Guard shows.
The protesters said they were letting through one truck per hour but exempting some shipments from their blockade, including equipment for Ukraine's army, humanitarian aide, volatile substances and livestock transports.
"Attention, traffic from Poland is hampered due to the strike of Polish carriers!", the Ukrainian Border Guard said on Telegram.
According to the Ukrainian Infrastructure Ministry, an average of 40,000 to 50,000 trucks cross the border with Poland per month via eight crossings, twice as many as before the war. Most of the goods are carried by Ukraine's transport fleet.
It said Ukraine exports as many goods through Poland as through all other neighbours combined.
"The blocking of the roads to the border crossings between Poland and Ukraine ... is a painful stab in the back of Ukraine, which is suffering Russian aggression," Ukraine's ambassador in Warsaw, Vasyl Zvarych, wrote on social media platform X.
(Reporting by Karol Badohal in Warsaw and Pavel Polityuk in Kyiv Additional reporting by Alan Charlish; Editing by Mark Potter, Ron Popeski and Bill Berkrot)
