Baltic States – CIS, Latvia, Legislation, Transport

The Foreign Ministry points out that after being blamed by the Russian side of violations by Latvian truckers in Russia, the responsible institutions in Latvia have carried out the necessary measures in revoking licenses from the specific trucking companies and strengthening the control of Latvian transport companies. The Russian side has been informed of these measures carried out by the Latvian side, the Foreign Ministry points out.

The Latvian side believes that the measures being carried out by Russia at the moment are not appropriate.

The Foreign Ministry has promised to inform the European Commission of Russia's actions.

On the other hand, the Russian Federal Customs Service announced on December 16 that it wishes to solve the conflict. The Russian side has also informed that it has received information from the Latvian side regarding the measures Latvia has taken to improve control measures of trucking companies, as well as the fact that Latvia has revoked the licenses of truckers who have committed violations in Russia.

The Russian side also has informed that it is ready to discuss the conflict with Latvia during a meeting this Friday.

As reported, truck traffic at the Grebneva border crossing with Russia has been completely paralyzed.

There are almost 310 trucks in line waiting to enter Russia at the Grebneva border control point.

Furthermore, there are currently about 500 trucks waiting to enter Russia at the Terehova border crossing, however, even though slow, traffic has not yet been paralyzed.

The situation at the borders is currently calm, and drivers hope that the situation will be solved in the near future. However, if the situation remains as it is for a longer period of time, it has not been ruled out that drivers could begin to protest.

LETA also reported, Russian Federal Customs Service is doing extra checks on trucks from Latvia at the Latvia-Russia border, which hampers the movement of transport across the border greatly at Terehova and Grebneva border crossing posts, as the Latvian International Trucking Association Latvijas auto President Valdis Trezins told the business portal "Nozare.lv".

The Russian customs tightened the checks on Latvian trucks on December 15.

Trezins points out that Russian customs are now using the same methods against Latvian carriers that they had used against Lithuanian truckers this past summer.

"The situation is catastrophic because it is winter and the trucks that have to wait in line had not reckoned with anything like this," Trezins said. Since holidays are about to begin, the truckers at the border may remain stranded there for a very long time, he said.

A meeting with Russian representatives will take place in Riga on Friday, December 18, and the Latvian side hopes that some agreements could be reached with Russia at the meeting. "We have our own mechanisms to find a compromise," said Trezins.

Trezins also said that the tightened customs checks had been ordered "at high levels", because the Russian budget revenue was smaller than planned and a scapegoat had to be found.

The Russian RIA Novosti news agency reported that the Russian customs would tighten the checks on Latvian trucks because the number of violations by Latvian truckers in Russia had increased threefold, whereas the amount of taxes unpaid by Latvian truckers caused the Russian budget a loss of RUB 50 million (LVL 800,000).