At the borders, trucks go gloomy – Newspaper Kommersant No. 32 (7477) from 02/21/2023

Poland closes the last border crossing on the border with Belarus, allowing commercial trucks to pass through. From 21:00 on February 21, only trucks registered in EU member states or the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) will be able to pass through the Kukuryki-Kozlovichi checkpoint.

Against the backdrop of aggravated relations with Belarus, the Polish side closed a week ago the penultimate checkpoint accessible to trucks, Berestovitsa-Bobrovniki. The process began in November 2021 with the cessation of traffic through the Bruzgi-Kuznitsa border crossing. Belarus, in response to the closure of Berestovitsa, restricted the entry of Polish trucks.

Belarusian-Polish checkpoints have historically served as the main gateway to the EU for Russian and transit vehicles. Of course, their closure is a big blow to the Russian economy. However, this blow has already been dealt, and not now. Recall that since April 2022, the fifth package of EU sanctions has banned entry into the union of Russian and Belarusian road carriers. Belarus quickly responded with a counter ban, however incomplete, allowing transport from the EU to enter the border areas for re-transfer or reloading. After much deliberation, Russia followed the example of its neighbor and introduced a similar scheme for European vehicles from October 10th.

It would seem, is there anything left to worry about? It remains, but rather Poland, market participants say. Yuliya Sula, head of the partner network development of the VIG Trans car assembly service, recalls what Alexander Lukashenko said in a recent interview: the Poles shot themselves in the foot. There are a huge number of carriers whose vehicles are registered in countries such as Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Serbia, which, before the current restriction by Poland, could freely cross the borders of the EU and were not subject to the sanctions restrictions of either Europe, or Belarus, or the Russian Federation, she notes. And Poland banned entry to everyone except members of the EU and EFTA (and this is only Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Liechtenstein). “Poland, which has been earning for decades on the transit of goods from Eurasia to Europe, in this way has almost completely deprived itself of transit, and its carriers of earnings,” says Ms. Sula. other countries of registration. Another interlocutor of Kommersant talks about the expected increase in the load on the Lithuanian-Belarusian border crossings, noting that Lithuania has recently also stopped cooperating with Belarus on organizing an uninterrupted flow of transport across the border, and about the loss of transiters from third countries. And in addition to the obsessive statement of the fact that trade has once again become a hostage to politics, I want to ask: “And what are they for?”