26 september 2024 — 14:06
The Lithuanian government has approved the proposal of the Ministry of Finance to denounce agreements on cooperation in the customs sphere with Belarus and Russia. These agreements were signed two decades ago: with Belarus in 1996 in Vilnius, and with Russia in 1995 in Moscow.
The State Customs Committee of Belarus commented on this decision. They noted that the Lithuanian customs stopped any cooperation with the Belarusian customs at the beginning of 2022, writes abw.by .
"Earlier, the customs authorities of Belarus repeatedly appealed to them about the need to comply with agreements on the reception of vehicles, offered to hold meetings, consider the possibility of opening closed checkpoints. There was no reaction," the State Customs Committee of Belarus noted. They also added that "at present, Lithuanians artificially create queues at the border, irregularly arrange transport, periodically and do not register at all. And this is taking into account the fact that only two checkpoints were left in operation."
The document on denunciation with the position of the government has yet to be considered by the Lithuanian Seimas. "The official refusal to fulfill the obligations stipulated by Belarus and Lithuania in the customs agreement is another confirmation of the disdainful attitude of the Lithuanian side towards people, including citizens of their country," is the position of the State Customs Committee of Belarus.
By the way, as of 10:00 on Thursday, there are 540 trucks, 10 cars, and no buses in the queue for departure to Lithuania at the Kamenny Log checkpoint; 770 trucks, no queues of cars and buses at the Benyakoni checkpoint. Over the past day, the control services of the Myadininkai checkpoint (Kamenny Log) accepted only 86 trucks out of 500 possible, which is only 17% of the norm, i.e. 3 cars out of 20 per hour.