The head of the Association of Hungarian Road Carriers (MKFE), Tivadara Arvai, has said that entrepreneurs from Hungary, as well as their counterparts from Poland and Slovakia, will hold protests at the border with Ukraine.
According to Tivadar Arvai, from Monday, 10 November, Hungarian road hauliers will start a protest action at the Zahony-Czop checkpoint on the border with Ukraine. The head of the movement emphasised that Ukrainian entrepreneurs are destroying the economic situation of Hungary’s domestic market.
“Due to the appearance of Ukrainian hauliers on the EU market, several hundred Hungarian companies are on the verge of ruin,” said the head of the Association of Hungarian Road Carriers (MKFE), as quoted by MTI news agency.
The leader of the movement emphasised that the passability of heavy trucks from Ukraine on Hungarian transport routes has increased to 30%. At the same time, according to him, the situation for domestic carriers has worsened by 4%.
“Poles and Slovaks are talking about this, but the same is behind the Hungarian protests starting on Monday,” the chairman of the Hungarian movement emphasised.
The head of the MKFE said that road hauliers from Ukraine have come out of a completely differentiated legal and economic plane. Therefore, the chairman of the movement noted that the costs between domestic entrepreneurs and Ukrainian ones are different, and also Ukrainians have received favourable rights from the European Union, which do not apply to other members of the political-economic association.
“We asked the EU – last week there was a meeting of the transport Commission <…> to revise its agreement with Ukraine and take into account the interests of EU member states, including transport companies in Hungary, and not to allow Ukrainian carriers, having long gone beyond the original intentions, appeared in the EU mainly for business purposes,” – summarised Arvai.
We shall remind you that earlier the adviser to the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, Mykhaylo Podolyak, said that Ukraine was ready for conflicts in trade and economic terms not only with Poland, but also with other member states of the European Union, which would defend the policy of protectionism towards the national manufacturer. According to the Ukrainian politician, such disputes are “normal” for the EU member states, and Kiev needs to learn how to resolve them through the negotiation process.