Protesting road hauliers block traffic at Kapitan Andreevo border crossing

Road hauliers blocked the traffic through "Kapitan Andreevo" checkpoint in protest on June 3. The insist on speeding up the process of phytosanitary control.

The delays came after the closure of the private laboratory that processed the samples at the checkpoint, the hauliers claim. The samples are now being processed by the Bulgarian Food Safety Agency and it takes hours.

For more details, see Tsanka Semerdjieva's story.

The protesters are demanding an urgent meeting with Transport and Communications Minister Nikolai Sabev, who is visiting the Kapitan Andreevo border crossing today because of the queues and the aggravated situation over the state taking over phytosanitary control.

Minister Sabev met with Turkey's Deputy Minister of Trade in charge of Customs, Tuna Turagay, and the Governor of Edirne. After the meeting, he said that the authorities in the country will try to speed up the process of the passage of lorries, with the goal of 2,000 lorries per day being able to enter through the Kaptain Andreevo border crossing and 1,000 lorries through Lesovo.

Currently, about 3,500 lorries are waiting to enter the country from Turkey, Minister Sabev added.

Protesting hauliers vow not to lift the blockade at the checkpoint until they talk to Minister Sabev.

"I’ve been waiting for more than six days. Whether the reason is the laboratory, whether the reason is the heavy traffic, whether the reason is the small capacity of the checkpoint - it does not matter. What is important is that Bulgarian drivers and drivers from all over Europe are waiting for six days, which is unacceptable for us. We demand that this border crossing start working properly," a protesting driver said.

"We want normal communication, we want normal action, we want action to be taken urgently and to solve these problems. There's no way the trucks are going to sit here for six days, do you understand? It's like you are closing this border literally without providing an alternative," another protester said.