“At the Belarus-Lithuania border, even in the toll queue, truck drivers spend 4-5 days,” the Komsomolskaya Pravda in Belarus newspaper wrote last week.
Two queues of trucks were formed at the Privalka checkpoint. One is for truck drivers who enter Lithuania on a common basis, and the other is for those who have a paid pass.
Paid passes have been around for a long time, and they used to allow one to cross the border immediately, without delays. According to drivers, such a pass now costs 1,700 Euro per lorry and is issued for a year. However, since the beginning of the week it has become impossible to pass quickly, even at such a surcharge.
Now the “toll” queue stretches for 2-3 kilometers, and it takes 4-5 days to cross the border. Truck drivers wait more than two weeks in a regular queue.
According to the State Border Committee of Belarus, all the EU countries that have borders with the Republic of Belarus do not comply with the agreements on the passage of trucks. For example, on February 18, the Lithuanian checkpoints allowed only 66% of the possible throughput capacity of heavy vehicles to enter their country. The capacity of checkpoints at the border with Poland amounted to 73%. The same proportion of delays is at the border with Latvia.
In the morning, February 25, there were almost 4 thousand heavy trucks, including:
- heading to Latvia – 1260 (2 checkpoints);
- heading to Lithuania – 1720 (5 checkpoints);
- heading to Poland – 1270 (2 checkpoints).
Compared to last week, the total number of trucks in the exit queue has decreased slightly, but this is not a trend yet.
Sources: belarus.kp.ru, ati.su, gpk.gov.by