Quota Dispute Causes Truck Queues at Bulgarian-Turkish Border

There was a 2-3km queue of trucks at Bulgaria's Kapitan Andreevo border crossing Friday at noon, with Border Police cautioning that it could grow by the end of the day.

The truck queue is due to the ban of Bulgaria's Automobile Administration Executive Agency (AAEA) to allow on Bulgarian territory TIR trucks with one-off carriage authorisation which was adopted in response to the order of Turkey's customs authority concerning Bulgarian trucks with road transit authorisations issued one day ago.

Although the queue at the Kapitan Andreevo-Kapakule border crossing point between Bulgaria and Turkey is not so big, the threat of a blockade looms large unless the issue is resolved immediately, according to reports of Stanbdard daily.

Petko Angelov, Deputy Chair of the Bulgarian Association of Road Transport Unions (BASAT), insisted that Turkey was causing the tension on purpose, the aim being to exert pressure on the Bulgarian Transport Ministry.

He noted that a meeting of BASAT representatives with the Transport Minister on Thursday had revealed that the quota requested by Turkey of 25 000 road transit authorisations for 2014 had been fulfilled to nearly 50% 3 or 4 days ago, with Turkey having already received 10 000 of the permits.

Angelov suggested that Turkey was resorting to this trick in a bid to

Angelov claimed that Turkey insisted on receiving 100% of the permits, which was unacceptable for Bulgaria

He claimed that this was a trick on the part of Turkish carriers against Bulgaria for economical purposes. He insisted that Turkey sought to get hold of transit traffic from the Middle East to Europe, ignoring Bulgarian carriers.

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