Freight trains are accumulating on the Slovak-Ukrainian border, the government is not acting again and the goods have been standing there unnecessarily long
The Association of Railway Carriers of Slovakia (AROS) is calling on competent members of the government to resolve the situation on the border with Ukraine as a matter of urgency.
Due to lengthy customs procedures, there are freight trains, waiting for long hours for equipment and entry chaos.
Border processes need to be speeded up
Due to the Russian blockade of Ukrainian Black Sea ports after the invasion, it is not possible to secure grain and food. European countries have therefore begun to organize rail transport.
As the association reported on Tuesday, freight carriers in Slovakia are limited by the current operating restrictions at the crossings, while the documents do not reflect the current situation. EU Transport Commissioner Adina Ioana Vălean also calls for speeding up customs procedures at the border with Ukraine.
“Apart from the fact that the capacity of lines, wagons and transhipment points from wide gauge is not sufficient for the normal amount of production, freight carriers are also limited by the existing operating restrictions at border stations and are unable to carry as many trains as they could handle.” said AROS Executive Director Patrik Benka.
The government overlooks the issues
According to AROS, the staffing of police and customs officers would need to be supplemented as soon as possible and technologies for picking up and dropping off freight trains should be simplified by shortening vehicle inspections.
“At the same time, we propose to check the control of incoming passenger trains at the border and to carry out this control at the station Čierna na Tisou, as is the case in Hungary at the border station Záhony. This solution would not cost us an extra euro and would significantly increase the capacity of the border crossing, “ Benka remarked. According to him, they will also want other technological modifications that they want to discuss.
“Even this situation only proves that rail freight transport is beyond the interest of all competent in Slovakia,” AROS President Ján Biznár pointed out.
The inability to change the current settings, according to him, long downtimes at the border crossings with Ukraine, as a result of which freight trains will once again bypass Slovakia through Poland and Hungary.