V. Sinkevičius: The EU did not provide support for the transportation of Ukrainian grain through Klaipėda

“European Union financial support is not planned here (…) Today, such support is not planned,” V. Sinkevičius told Žiniai Radio on Thursday.

“We are not talking about some mystical support here, in this case it is the construction of new railway rolling stock, where one of the biggest problems is, secondly, it is the question of what happens with the same wagons that need to be transported grain: are there enough of them. There are many logistical issues,” said the member of the Commission.

The agreement between Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine on the transfer of Ukrainian grain control from the Ukrainian-Polish border to the port of Klaipėda is only the first step in facilitating the export of these cargoes through the Lithuanian port city.

Deputy Minister of Agriculture Vytenis Tomkus said on Tuesday that in addition to this agreement, it is also necessary to improve the infrastructure and seek additional funding, and the EU is still considering the issue of subsidies that would make the complex logistics of this route cheaper and has not decided on it.

V. Sinkevičius says that the issue of transporting Ukrainian grain through Lithuania is also complicated due to the fact that 150 million euros have been invested in the export infrastructure of this cargo in the port of Constanta in Romania.

“Transport through Lithuania is still difficult, especially when 150 million was invested in the development of the port of Konstanz, the ability to transport grain, because it is a very specific product that requires special wagons, special ships, in this case, that logistics is already ensured in the southern direction”, – said V. Sinkevičius.

According to the member of the European Commission, the transportation of grain through Lithuania will also depend on the choice of the Ukrainians: “It is difficult to say how far it will be possible to do this when talking about Poland and the Baltic countries, Lithuania. It will be the choice of Ukrainians because of that.”

Laimonas Rimkus, the manager of Bega, a company that loads Ukrainian grain at Klaipėda port, told BNS that it is already becoming too expensive to transport this cargo through Lithuania, and in addition, it is necessary to improve the railway infrastructure and seek European funding.

Lithuanian Minister of Agriculture Kęstutis Navickas said on Tuesday that reaching an agreement on the inspection of Ukrainian grain in Klaipėda will facilitate the crossing of the border, it will allow to transport a larger amount of grain more efficiently, primarily by easing the administrative burden.

Klaipėda port manager Algis Latakas told BNS on Tuesday that the transportation of grain from Ukraine through the Lithuanian port city can be increased in various ways, and the agreement reached on Tuesday is only one of the options for solving the problem, which eases the situation.

A. Latakas has mentioned that Klaipėda port could receive more than 10 million. tons of grain, but the biggest problem still remains how to get it to the port.

The state-owned Lietuvos Geležinkeliai started transporting small quantities of Ukrainian grain via Poland to the port of Klaipėda last May. The subsidiary LTG Cargo previously told BNS that with its current capacity it could transport 200,000 tons per year. tons of this cargo, and after a few years – about a million tons.

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