The European Business Association (EBA) appealed to the Council of Europe, Ukrainian and Polish government agencies with a call to establish communication and interaction to resolve issues of queues for freight traffic at the borders.

According to EBA, significant lines of cargo formed at Ukraine-Poland customs checkpoints. The duration of border crossing by trucks with products that are subject to inspection by veterinary control services is ten days. The duration of waiting for the crossing of other goods ranges from five to ten days or more.

The business association said that, according to Ukrainian legislation, customs clearance of goods must be carried out within four hours from the moment of arrival at the checkpoint. The list of goods that are subject to exclusion is "rather exhaustive" and is spelled out in the Customs Code.

The norms are difficult to comply with, since the EU is extremely slow in processing, in particular, due to the recent strike of Polish carriers near the border. This led to the fact that at Yahodyn checkpoint, there is a queue of 3,500 cars. Krakovets-Korczowa checkpoint passes about 117 trucks per day, although earlier this figure reached 440 trucks. At other checkpoints, the situation is no better, examples were given in EBA.

According to the business association, this affects doing business in Ukraine, Ukrainian and European supply chains.

"For Ukraine, these are direct losses, which amount to hundreds of thousands of euros per month, become the reason for changing routes, the reason for the possible duplication of business branches in other countries, and others," EBA said in the appeal.

EBA said such delays lead to direct losses for the EU countries. A significant number of shipments that are delayed at crossing points are goods bound for a number of EU countries (in transit through Poland). This, in particular, cargoes of manufacturing enterprises with European investments, carrying out operations for the processing of the same European goods on the territory of Ukraine, was noted in the business association.

EBA also said the situation at the border could provoke disruptions in deliveries to partners, production failures in Poland, or even a partial shutdown of production.

As for the interconnectedness of the economies of Ukraine and the EU countries, in particular Poland, EBA cited statistics from the Polish Ministry of Agriculture, according to which in 2022 the country exported agricultural products for EUR 47.6 billion, which is 26.7% more year-over-year, imported agricultural products (raw materials from Ukraine) by EUR7 billion more, increased the export of meat products and meat processing by 37% and by 40% the export of grain and cereals.

A number of Ukrainian representative offices of European companies turned to their headquarters with a request to consider this issue at the level of the governments of the respective countries, as well as in the Council of Europe.

According to EBA, this customs situation undermines the possibility of applying the Agreement between Ukraine and the EU on the carriage of goods by road, as well as Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council No.2022/870 on temporary measures to liberalize trade. If it is impossible to carry out the transportation or delivery of cargo within a reasonable time, the liberalization of transportation and the reduction of duties, unfortunately, cease to fulfil the mission for which they were introduced.

The business association believes that it is extremely important to continue to work together and harmoniously, as this creates additional added value both for products and for the development of business and the economies of countries as a whole. Ukraine can help create this added value, as evidenced by the statistics of the Polish Ministry of Agriculture.

EBA appealed to the Council of Europe, the Ministry of Infrastructure, the Ministry of Finance, the State Customs Service, the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine, the relevant government administrations of Poland and other EU states with a call to establish communication and interaction to resolve issues of queues for freight traffic at the borders.

EBA also said the Ukrainian side should finalize the functionality of the recently launched e-queue for the priority passage of goods registered in the joint transit regime.