Haulers Appeal to Recean: “Crossing the Border Has Become an Ordeal”

About 300 Moldovan road transport operators have submitted an appeal addressed to Prime Minister Dorin Recean, asking the authorities to intervene immediately to reduce the waiting time for lorries at the Moldovan-Romanian border. According to the haulers, in recent months, queues of trucks have increased at customs posts between Moldova and Romania, and crossing the border by lorry operators has turned into a “real ordeal”. They warn that waiting times at customs for lorry drivers can be as long as 9 days. “If before the declaration of war in Ukraine, the waiting time at Moldovan-Romanian border crossings was up to 48 hours, now the waiting time is up to 9 days. At the same time, the border crossings between Moldova and Romania are used not only by Romanian and Moldovan transport operators, but also by foreign vehicles, especially Ukrainian ones, due to the blockage of Ukrainian ports on the Black Sea. They cross the territory of the Republic of Moldova in transit, creating even more problems. The current situation is a serious obstacle to the efficient and timely implementation of road carriage of goods in international traffic, imposes large additional costs on road transport operators, as well as hampers the country’s foreign economic activity,” the appeal signed by the Union of Carriers and Road Transport Workers and the International Association of Road Haulers of Moldova reads. At the same time, the carriers complained about the lack of parking conditions near the border crossing points, which leads to non-compliance with the minimum sanitary and hygienic norms, as well as to the impossibility of keeping to the labor and rest regime of drivers. Operators warn that they are on the verge of completely stopping transport activities. “In the context of the above, we stress the urgent need to synchronize the operation between the Moldovan and Romanian customs authorities in order to optimize road traffic and improve conditions for crossing the Moldovan-Romanian border,” the carriers said in an appeal addressed to Dorin Recean.