Ukraine and Poland will open an additional border crossing for empty freight trucks Monday to free up a much-needed route for Kyiv, with some crossings blocked by weeks of protests by Polish drivers, Ukrainian authorities said Sunday.
Those protests, over what Polish truckers see as unfair competition from their Ukrainian peers, started on Nov. 6, with four border crossings now under blockade. Polish haulers' main demand is to stop Ukrainian truckers having permit-free access to the EU, something that Kyiv and Brussels say is impossible.
Ukrainian border service said Uhryniv checkpoint, currently operating only for passenger cars and buses, would be opened from 1 a.m. (midnight GMT) Monday for empty heavy vehicles with a total permissible weight of more than 7.5 metric tons.
"The opening of Uhryniv is the first point on the list of measures implemented to unblock the border, reduce queues and increase the capacity of the Ukrainian-Polish border," the border service said.
Ukraine said last week it had agreed to some measures with Poland that could ease the pressure at the blockaded border crossings, but that they had not discussed the main demands of the protests; that Ukrainian truckers be required to have entry permits for transport to EU countries. That permit rule was waived for Ukrainian truck drivers after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year.
