A critical situation has developed with international road permits issued by Poland in light of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit on Aug. 31 to Warsaw.
Since 2009, a quota of permits for the carriage of goods between countries has been established in the amount of 200,000 universal permits. Due to the Polish position to set a quota for 2019 at 130,000, the only option to prevent a traffic stop was the decision to exchange permits at the level of 160,000 with the continuation of a dialogue in 2019 to determine the said contingent. Negotiations at the meeting of the Ukrainian-Polish Joint Commission on International Road Transport on July 9-10 2019 in Warsaw failed, the issue of setting the quota for 2019 and setting the quota for 2020 was postponed to September-October 2019.
It should be noted that the allowance for international road permits shall not be less than 200,000. Today, the quota of 230,000 permits is the minimum required by the market. In 2018, we had a total number of permits of 260,000 (quota 200,000 plus an additional 100,000), in fact in 2019 the number of permits was reduced by 100,000. This has a negative impact on the ability to transport Ukrainian goods to the European Union.
Why did Poland decide to reduce the number of permits?
Interests of Polish carriers and reform of Macron
This was the main argument of the Polish negotiating team: That if European Union drivers pay more, Polish drivers will become uncompetitive and enter the transport market with Ukraine. French President Emmanuel Macron’s package was not approved by the EU Commission and Polish drivers use very few Ukrainian permits, even in the face of a shortage of our trips. The hidden effect was the registration of Ukrainian businesses with carrier companies in Poland and the increase in labor migration.
The element of bidding in the other sphere of transport
Discounts on rail transportation or the use of Polish credit for the development of border infrastructure does not affect Poland’s position. By the way, Infrastructure Minister Andrzej Adamczyk, in the presence of the parliamentary speaker, promised me to return a quota of 200,000 at a forum in Rzeszow in June, provided that the lane at the Krakowiec border crossing point will divided into passenger and cargo. We are starting to carry out this project for the budget, however the Poles has not returned the previous quota level.
Personal reasons
Historic issues or paternalistic motives – when a senior partner teaches a junior, and not just the age of the two ministers. The presence of the former Polish transport minister in the post of head of Ukravtodor, who is in opposition to the current government, may also be a factor. It is difficult to understand what is decisive, but in politics it is often personal or irrational that matters.
How can this be resolved:
- Shift negotiations to a higher political level (presidents and prime ministers), as ministry-level meetings during 2018-2019 did not give us the desired result.
- Mirror measures – when we use three times more road permits, Polish airlines fly three times more than Ukraine International. However, there is a risk that Ryanair and Wizzair will suffer if LOT slots are reduced.
- Since Poland is a member of the EU and we have an association agreement in place, we will try to resolve this in Brussels. We consider the reduction of the quota to be a deterioration of the conditions of access to the market of transport services of EU member states.
The provisions of Article 136 of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement stipulates that the parties shall not render the conditions of mutual market access more restrictive between the Parties as compared to the situation existing on the day preceding the day of entry into force of this Agreement.
Article 368 of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement provides that cooperation between the parties shall aim to facilitate the restructuring and modernization of Ukrainian transport sector and ensuring passenger and freight traffic, increasing traffic flow between Ukraine, the EU and third countries in the region by removing administrative, technical, border and other barriers and the contingent of permits is an administrative barrier.
My opinion is that Poland should avoid introducing conditions for mutual access to the market, since they are more restrictive than those that existed at the date of entry into force of the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU. At the time of the entry into force of the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU the amount of permits for the international road freight transportations had been approved at the level of 200,000 of the main quota and 60 000 of the optional permits. Reducing the quota of permits to the level of 160,000 is a direct violation of the provisions of the Association Agreement.
Given the criticality of the situation and the increase in social tension among national carriers, it is necessary to establish a quota of permits for international road freight transportations at least at the level of 200,000 (the real needs of Ukrainian carriers are 230,000 permits).
Despite the positive dynamics of trade turnover between Ukraine and the EU, which directly affects the volume of road freight transportations in 2018, the actions of Polish Government block not only the bilateral trade, but as well the export and transit to Germany and France.
