Polish hauliers want to resume blocking a border crossing with Ukraine on Monday afternoon after a court overturned a decision by local authorities that protesters should have dispersed last week.
The protests are scheduled to resume at the Dorohusk-Jagodzin checkpoint. The blockade of the other three checkpoints has been ongoing since early November. Rafał Mekler, one of the protest leaders wrote on X:
There’s a new blockade starting at Dorohusk and farmers are joining us.
Polish hauliers resent the terms of last year’s agreement between the EU and Ukraine to liberalise rules on the transport of goods by truck. Local hauliers for the same reasons also block Ukrainian border crossings with Hungary and Slovakia. Polish farmers are joining them to prevent cheap Ukrainian grain from reaching Polish markets.
Both positions violate EU policy, but the European Commission has been unable to get Warsaw to take decisive action to stop the protests. Kyiv also complains that the blockades are hurting its economy and ability to continue the war.
The Dorohusk-Jagodzin checkpoint is the busiest on the Ukrainian-Polish border, with about 40 per cent of all cargo traffic between the two countries passing through it. The blockade has caused an 80-kilometre queue of trucks waiting to cross the border with Ukraine, local media reported.
Polish truckers accuse Ukrainian hauliers of underpricing their services. They are also dissatisfied with the fact that Ukrainians transport goods between points inside Poland and carry goods between Poland and third countries – so-called cabotage. These activities are not allowed by the transport agreement with the EU.
