The French news agency AFP reported today that the European Commission is expected to announce a “solution for all truckers in the Balkan region” at a meeting in Serbia on September 10.
In a text from Sarajevo on the conclusion of the truckers’ strike in Bosnia and Herzegovina, AFP writes that this was announced to journalists by Velibor Peulić, the coordinator of the association of truck drivers “Konzorcijum Logistika BiH”.
Bosnian truck drivers who had blocked roads since the beginning of this week, demanding better access to European Union roads, suspended their strike on Tuesday, and traffic in Bosnia and Herzegovina is back to normal today, AFP writes.
“The border cargo terminals are working at full capacity, and traffic on all roads is flowing smoothly,” said Bisera Hašimbegović, spokeswoman for the BIHAMK drivers’ association, to journalists.
AFP states that more than 90 percent of freight transport in Bosnia and Herzegovina is done by road.
During the strike, the truckers also blocked cargo terminals at a dozen border crossings for a day and a half, mostly with Croatia, an EU member.
Representatives of the sector, which employs between 15,000 and 18,000 drivers, are calling on the authorities to negotiate with the EU to change a rule they consider discriminatory: they are allowed to spend only 90 days within the European Union for every 180 days.
The drivers are demanding an exemption, or that the time they spend within the EU be calculated in hours, just like their working hours, and not in days, since on some days they are in the EU for only a few hours, but it is counted as a full day.
Their representatives announced on Tuesday evening that they had achieved some concessions.
“There are still some technical points, but we can say that the key issues (…) are now being resolved,” said Peulić, the coordinator of “Konzorcijum Logistika BiH”, to journalists.
AFP states that the EU is Bosnia and Herzegovina’s main trading partner: of the 22.9 billion euros of trade in 2024, 64 percent was with the EU, according to data from the Bosnia and Herzegovina Agency for Statistics.
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Source: N1; Photo: Pixabay