An agreement between the European Union and Ukraine allowing Ukrainian cargo to enter the EU without a transport permit has been extended until the end of the year.
This is the fourth extension of the deal which was originally signed in 2022, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Kuleba said the extension was important news for his country’s economy and its exporters.
However, transport companies in the eastern member states of the EU have in the past organised blockades on the Ukrainian border to protest the agreement, which they believe has led to unfair competition, with Ukrainian companies offering cheaper prices for their services.
Truckers in countries such as Poland and Slovakia have also accused their Ukrainian counterparts of transporting goods within the European Union—which they are not allowed to do—rather than just between the bloc and Ukraine.
The European Commission, however, has not been empathetic to the plight of EU truckers.
The conservative government of Hungary has warned that the EU is pushing Ukraine closer to EU accession, which would go against Hungarian interests. On Thursday, April 10th, the Minister of the Prime Minister’s Office, Gergely Gulyás, said that the fast-tracked plan to admit Ukraine “poses serious economic, agricultural, and public safety risks for Hungary.”
