European controlling agencies blamed for long queues at Belarusian border

Controlling agencies of European Union countries continue slowly clearing the vehicles that leave Belarus, the State Customs Committee of Belarus told BelTA.

Belarus' Customs believes that controlling agencies of neighboring countries deliberately slow down the traffic. The Polish side clears 48% of the standard number of vehicles on average, the Lithuanian side clears 53% and the Latvian one 55%. The traffic situation is dire at the Belarusian-Lithuanian border checkpoint Kamenny Log where over 1,100 vehicles are waiting for their turn to leave Belarus. The Lithuanian side cleared 190 trucks out of the possible number of 500 within the last 24 hours. 

Three out of five border crossings are still closed to traffic upon the initiative of the Polish side, including one of the largest border crossings – Kuznica Bialostocka (Bruzgi on the Belarusian side). The remaining border checkpoints Berestovitsa and Kozlovichi have to deal with a much larger workload as a result. Truck queues at the former have been as long as 600-700 vehicles lately. The border checkpoint Berestovitsa is designed to process 500 vehicles daily but the Polish side clears only 100-150 per day.

The average time needed to cross the Belarusian border into the European Union varies and now exceeds 6 hours in the direction of Lithuania, is about 6 hours (up to 10 hours at the border checkpoint Berestovitsa) in the direction of Poland, and is about 5 hours in the direction of Latvia.

Meanwhile, the Belarusian side clears all the vehicles that come from the other side of the border. “We are ready to clear more, provided controlling agencies of the European Union countries that border on Belarus work more smoothly,” the State Customs Committee told BelTA.