Farmers in Romania and Bulgaria staged protests Friday against the European Union’s decision to exempt agricultural products from Ukraine from duties, which ended up oversaturating local markets and contributing to lower prices, the Associated Press (AP) reported Friday.
“Farmers in Romania and Bulgaria staged protests Friday over the European Union’s stance on excessive supplies of Ukrainian agricultural products that have flooded local markets and weakened prices,” AP reported.
Protests took place in Bucharest and other Romanian cities. In Bulgaria, farmers blocked several border points.
“The new harvest is less than three months away and there is a danger that produce cannot be sold above the production price,” AP quoted Liliana Peron, executive director of the Romanian Farmers’ Association, as saying.
Polish farmers have also protested in recent weeks over duty-free supplies of Ukrainian grain to European markets adopted by the EU, forcing the country’s Agriculture Minister Henrik Kowalczyk to resign.
Last year, the EU abolished customs tariffs for Ukraine for freer grain shipments.
On Monday, the European Commission said it wanted to help the Ukrainian population by organizing the export of Ukrainian grain, but it is making sure that the EU market is not hit too hard by Kiev’s support measures.
Romania has temporarily suspended the passage of trucks across the state border, and the traffic police have banned the passage of all vehicles traveling from three road checkpoints on the Ukrainian-Romanian border due to difficult weather conditions, the Western Regional Department of the State Border Service reported on Facebook.
“The road police of Romania prohibited the passage of all vehicles from the checkpoints “Dyakovtsy-Rakovetsy”, “Porubnoe-Siret” and “Krasnoilsk-Veche de Sus” in the direction of Siret and Suceava due to snow drifts and unsatisfactory condition of roads in these sections,” – explained in the message.
The State Border Service asks citizens to take this information into account when planning trips to Romania.
At the same time, the state border with Poland, Slovakia and Hungary, the checkpoints operate stably, the travel is not hampered.
The Agency for Reconstruction clarified that in the Chernivtsi region, where the precipitation continues for the third day, snow removal technicians are working.
“Thanks to the coordinated work of the contracting organizations of the Agency for reconstruction, the passage on state roads of Bukovina is provided, restrictions are not introduced,” – said in Telegram agency.
Earlier it was reported that due to icing of the contact network on the Lviv railroad with a delay of 30 minutes or more were eight trains. By mid-day, only train № 113/114 Lviv-Kharkiv was delayed by 30 minutes. The rest of the trains were back on schedule.
Ukrainian airline SkyUp Airlines evacuated its last plane from Boryspil airport to Iasi, Romania, profile publication avianews reported.
“I can only point out one thing – the flight was made in the interests of the state,” the company’s general director Dmitry Seroukhov confirmed to Interfax-Ukraine news agency on Wednesday.
According to Flightradar24 resource, on April 4, the pilots of Boeing 737-800 SkyUp with UR-SQP registration turned on the aircraft transmitter in the sky near Chernivtsi, the aircraft was en route from Boryspil airport to Iasi, Romania, where it landed at 20:06.
Avianews claims that at night during the full-scale invasion of Russia, pilots tried to evacuate the plane to Chisinau, but air traffic controllers ordered to return to the airport because the sky was closed to civil planes.
According to the profile publication, this is currently the third successful evacuation of passenger aircraft from airports in Ukraine since the large-scale Russian invasion: April 2, 2022 “Rosa Vetrov” evacuated from Lviv aircraft ATR-72, and September 13 also from Lviv could evacuate their Airbus A320 low-cost carrier Wizz Air.
In addition the Interfax-Ukraine news agency reported on the evacuation of two A400Ms from Boryspil by Turkey in December.
The former head of UIA Yevhen Dyhne reported that the airline had 12 planes “stuck” in Boryspil and another one in Odessa, while Wizz Air had three planes still remaining at Kiev (Zhulyany) airport.
Leaders of five Central and Eastern European countries have urged the European Commission to take action in connection with a surplus of grain and other Ukrainian food on their territory, the Associated Press reported from Warsaw.
“We call on the European Commission to study the possibility of buying accumulated grain from EU member states bordering Ukraine for humanitarian needs,” reads a letter addressed to EC President Ursula von der Leyen on behalf of the prime ministers of Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria.
“We also reiterate our call for financial support from the EU to accelerate the development of transport infrastructure (for the export of grain – IF),” it says.
It is pointed out that such products remain on the shelves of these countries in excess, reducing prices, and do not reach the countries that are ready to buy them outside the EU.
The European Commission earlier said that it intended to quickly launch an assistance mechanism for countries that faced an influx of Ukrainian products.
The Romanian government in cooperation with Moldovan authorities will build a pontoon bridge across the Prut border river to improve the transportation of cargo from Ukraine, mainly grain, according to the website of Polish publication Gospodarka Morska, citing Irinel Scriosteanu, state secretary of the Romanian Transport Ministry.
According to Romanian official, the new pontoon crossing will be built at the place where until 1944 there was a bridge between Bumbata village (Bumbata, Romania) and Leova city (Leova, Moldova), later destroyed by Soviet Red Army troops.
Scriosteanu said the pontoon bridge would be used for both passenger and freight traffic.
“In recent months, the Romanian and Moldovan governments have announced a number of logistics projects to improve the transportation of goods from Ukraine, especially grain. Because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Romanian port of Constanta is important for the shipment of grain from this country through the Black Sea,” the Polish edition concluded.
As reported, Romania became the largest importer of Ukrainian grain crops in 2022 because of the Russian aggression, although in 2021 it was not even in the top 20 importers. Its share was 13.6% of the total value of Ukrainian supplies of this commodity group abroad. During the year, this country increased the volume of imports from Ukriane by 690 times compared to 2021 – up to $1.24 billion from $1.8 million.
Ukrzaliznytsia JSC (UZ) is negotiating with the Romanian side to implement a project that will extend the connection from the recently opened Valia-Visheului station to major cities in Romania, and continues to develop the connection between Ukrainian regional centers and international destinations, UZ board member Alexander Pertsovsky told Interfax-Ukraine Agency.
“We continue to develop international connections. We have already made the first steps to connect western Ukraine with Romania. So far it is one small station Valya-Visheului, but we are working with the Romanian side to extend messages to major cities on the Romanian side,” – said Pertsovsky.
According to him, there is a wide track (1520 mm) in this direction, on which ordinary Ukrainian cars will be able to pass.
As previously reported, last year UZ repaired sections Rakhiv – Dilove – Valya Visheului (19.2 km of track, 12 bridges), and also held repairs of the station in Rakhiv. This allowed to bring back to life a section of the railroad, which has not functioned since 2011, and to run trains number 755/756 and number 753/754 Rakhiv-Valya-Visheului-Rakhiv. Also, the section at the border with Romania, Teresva – border, which had not functioned since 2007, was repaired. There are also two international crossings between Ukraine and Romania, through which only freight traffic is carried out: Vadul-Siret-Dornesti and Dyakovo-Halmeu.
In general, due to active launching of new international communications, the number of passengers traveling in international directions from Ukraine has increased by 9 times, said Pertsovskyi, without specifying absolute numbers.
He pointed out that the most popular destination is Poland. Every day, UZ receives up to 2 thousand or more requests to buy tickets for the train Kyiv-Warsaw. As reported, to provide more seats, on February 19, UZ launched a service that allows people from Kharkiv to go to Kyiv and Kyiv-Warsaw train to Helm, where passengers can arrive in Warsaw at the same time as the passengers of direct train Kyiv-Warsaw with an interchange. Now there are 8 cars with the occupancy of 95%. In the future there may be up to 10 of them. Also on February 19 UZ started one more train Kharkiv-Peremyshl.
According to Pertsovsky, UZ will continue to develop the direction of communication of the regions in the direction of international destinations.
“We will continue to work with the Polish direction. We see that the routes connecting the same Kharkiv work effectively. We will see to what extent Dnipro, Odessa… Because since the beginning of the war we have got communication with Europe not only the capital, but also Dnipro, Zaporozhye, Odessa, Vinnitsa. And we look at the demand in these directions to assess plans for further development”, – said a member of the board of UZ.
