Poland does not rule out stopping rail freight transportation with Belarus

Poland is considering the possibility of completely closing the border with Belarus, including railway crossings. Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs and Administration of Poland Maciej Wonsik stated this in an interview with PAP. Thus, if this happens, not only road, but also rail freight transportation will be stopped, while now goods from China are also transported through Belarus by rail.

“If necessary, we will close railway crossings with Belarus,” Maciej Wonsik said in comments to the PAP agency. At the same time, he clarified that in general the decision to close the border will be made jointly with the Lithuanian side.

“We understand that most of the trade, including Polish, goes through them (through railway crossings on the border with Belarus - approx.). Chinese trade is also following this path,” the official noted.

Thus, he made it clear that the decision to close railway border crossings will directly affect Chinese logistics. In other words, Poland expects that China, for its part, will influence the Belarusian authorities in order to prevent a stop in cargo transportation.

At the moment, only freight transport is carried out through railway crossings on the border of Poland and Belarus. Passenger service was suspended in 2020 amid the coronavirus pandemic and has not resumed since then.

As for automobile checkpoints, there are currently only two crossings on the Belarusian-Polish border: one (“Brest/Terespol”) is exclusively for passenger transport, the second (“Kozlovichi/Kukuryki”) is for freight. Moreover, only trucks registered in EU countries can pass through the latter.