Ukraine, Poland to hold next round of talks on freight transport permits in mid-2020
Ambassador of Ukraine to Poland Andriy Deshchytsia said this in an interview with Ukrinform.
"At a recent meeting of infrastructure ministers, it has been agreed that an analysis of the use of permits will be conducted in the middle of this year, when it will be clear – a total number of permits and how they will be used," Deschytsia said.
He noted that these permits are issued on a reciprocal basis. Therefore, their number may grow under several conditions: “If Polish carriers use the same number of permits (at present they use about 100,000, not 160,000), if there are interesting and competitive orders for them in Ukraine, if there are no lines at the border, which is unusual for them when traveling in Europe, and if the quality of roads is better”.
As Ukrinform reported, last year Poland reduced the number of permits to transport Ukrainian goods to Poland or transit through Poland to 160,000. In 2018, Poland granted 260,000 such permits to Ukraine.
In September 2019, Prime Minister of Ukraine Oleksiy Honcharuk stated that Ukrainian freight carriers had almost exhausted their quotas to transport Ukrainian goods to Poland. At the time, he stressed that the remaining permits could be used for several more weeks. After that, negotiations between the Ukrainian and Polish sides on that issue took place.
On November 1, the Infrastructure Ministry of Ukraine informed that Poland would grant 5,000 additional permits in 2019 and 10,000 more permits in 2020. On December 2, Poland began issuing permits to Ukrainian freight carriers under a quota agreed between the governments.
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