MINSK, February 25. /TASS/. Lines of trucks at the Belarusian-Lithuanian border have considerably decreased by the morning, Belarusian State Border Committee said on Thursday.
As of 8am Moscow time, around 130 trucks are waiting in line to enter Lithuania from Belarus. In the evening of February 24, more than 400 trucks were waiting in line. Around 100 trucks are also standing in line in Lithuania waiting to enter Belarus.
Minsk hopes that lines on the Belarusian-Lithuanian border will decrease after Russian trucks will head for Poland. According to State Border Committee, there are currently no trucks at the Belarusian-Polish border.
- Ukrainian radicals again threaten to resume blockade of Russian trucks
- Lithuania says trucks cross smoothly border to Belarus, Russia
- Poland plans to reach agreement with Russia on truck haulage
- Lithuanian shipping companies eye Russian-German ferry line bypassing Poland
- Russia and Poland agree to extend transitional period for freight traffic until April 15
On February 1 truck haulage licenses between Russia and Poland expired. The sides did not reach an agreement on extending licenses for one more year, and truck haulage between the two countries was suspended from the start of February. Negotiations on this matter continued for three days in Warsaw but the sides could not reach an agreement. The new round of talks will took place in Russia on February 19. The sides reached an agreement to exchanged 20,000 licenses each until April 15. Until then, the sides will continue negotiations to agree on quotas for 2016.
Poland is discontent with the adoption of legislative and regulatory acts in Russia that bring more order into the international haulage operations on the Russian territory, including the truckage of cargoes for third countries.
Russian officials say the revised legislation has eliminated the shortcomings in the regulatory acts that enabled unscrupulous foreign haulage companies to bring in cargoes from third countries under the cover of a privileged regime for bilateral truckage.