UKRAINE - ONE YEAR OF WAR/ Tulcea: Semi-trailer truck traffic in Isaccea customs, maintained at high level

The traffic of semi-trailer trucks from Ukraine in the customs office of the town of Isaccea in Tulcea County has reached a high level again, after a period in which the vehicles vacated the city. Mayor Anastase Moraru announces that traffic in the area will be affected this summer, due to the absence of a parking lot and a proper road for heavy vehicles.

The mayor told AGERPRES that he had taken the first steps to develop the two objectives since last summer, but so far the requests submitted to the national authorities have not been materialized in the allocation of funds.

At the end of last week, 5 kilometers from the town of Isaccea, on one of the roads leading to the hills of Niculitel, dozens of 18-wheelers with Ukrainian registration numbers were waiting for the police officers' signals to continue their journey to the ferry that crosses the Danube from the Romanian-Ukrainian customs.

"We have been sitting for several hours and we have nothing to eat. We would like to go to the store. Will you help us?," asks one of the drivers, Valentin Buruiana, aged 60, from Kilia, Ismail district.

He speaks Romanian and has been a truck driver for 40 years. Before the outbreak of the war, he made deliveries in Europe, but then, like the other colleagues, was not allowed to leave the country except to reach the Port of Constanta.

"I was there when they summoned me [to the Army - editor's note], but they told me that, until there were men, I should do my job. And I took on a job in transport in Romania. Initially, they said that they would give us 3,000 euros, and now it's 1,500 euros. I don't know why they are deceiving us," he expressed his displeasure.

Like other Ukrainian colleagues, he would like to pay for a shower in Isaccea and says that the roads in Romania are narrow and full of branches. It's as if they already know what the Romanian drivers hold against trailer truck drivers from Ukraine. "The truck avoids the branches and hits another driver. It must be done like in Europe. There are devices that cut the branches," he adds.

In order to reach a store on the outskirts of Isaccea, Ukrainian truck drivers have to walk. They have no phone numbers to call a taxi and no one comes to them with food. "I take food with me for three days. I have to walk or take a taxi. Where do I get a taxi? In Ukraine, women bring cakes, milk, kefir. And we pay them extra," he says.

In the car, with another truck driver who does not know Romanian, on the way to the store, he tells that in the village where he lives, no bombs are being heard, but young people are being buried. "In Kilia, there are no bombs. But they bring dead boys from the war. It's not right. Well, if you go to war, the tank comes and you go against it with the automatic machine? You can't do anything. In 1941, they threw a grenade, with the gas bottle, but now the rocket comes, kills you and that's it!," says the Ukrainian.

In the store, he and his friend fill their bags with bread, meat and vegetable products, and one of the saleswomen is surprised that I brought them both all the way to town.

"We often see them at the store. We recognize some of them by their slippers. They buy their slippers from us, to sit more comfortably in the trailer truck. But we are afraid to take them by car to where they leave their trucks, we are women. A colleague once saw that a woman and a man, both Ukrainians, came on foot and she dared to take them by car, just because they were together," said Mirela Stan, one of the employees of a store in Isaccea.

On the way to the 18-wheeler, Valentin Buruiana says that he wrote to the authorities in Galati, dissatisfied with a fine received from the police, due to the lack of a vignette. "They didn't give me permission to buy a vignette on their territory. There was snow. I stayed for a kilometer, but I can't leave the car, because others are coming and steal from it. Let me get closer and I'll go get the vignette. And the police didn't give me permission. They are probably in league with one another. And they fined me 600 euros. Others have also been wronged. And I pay, so that I don't sit at home and die of hunger," said the truck driver .

I ask him why the employer doesn't find it convenient to send the freight by water, from the new point set up near Orlivka, the customs office on the Ukrainian bank of the Danube. "In the summer, I could see how the barges were being loaded and loaded and they couldn't move. We need to build a terminal like in America," he explained.

I remind them that they can get free hot food near the customs crossing and ask them if they don't want to go there, and they agree. "No, because we have money. We eat there, too, but there are some of us who are fatter who don't want to ask for another portion," jokes Valentin Buruiana.

At the end of the road with the two truck drivers from Ukraine, the mileage of the car shows exactly 10 kilometers.

The mayor of Isaccea, Anastase Moraru, admits that last year's most important challenge was the intense traffic, given that there is no parking in the area, and the customs was designed at normal parameters, for peacetime.

"Traffic was directed to areas that used to be peaceful. And I'm referring to the area of the streets that belong to the city, where even now trailer trucks are parked, which is an inconvenience. During the summer, the route was on the pier, but it is a flood defense pier made of earth and stone and cannot be used in the winter, including for safety reasons. During the winter, the trailer trucks were placed more in the Capaclia area, at the quarry, on Campia Libertatii street that leads to a small industrial area, where we have a stone loading point, a methane gas station, but also on the secondary road to the stone quarry," said the mayor.

He recalled that the intense traffic has led to an increase in pollution, a fact proven by the air quality monitoring station, but also disrupted the activity of the stone quarry.

"We have taken the matter up two or three times with the Government of Romania, requesting that they urgently allocate money, so that we can start a feasibility study and be able to start the design and execution, something for which we have not received any kind of positive response, so far. The problem is that summer is coming, with many projects that we have under implementation, projects under the Regional Operational Program and not only, projects that will seriously disrupt the traffic of the trailer trucks," said the mayor of the town of Isaccea.

The trailer truck traffic in the area will be suspended in the absence of the 12 million euros, the amount requested by the local authority for the development of the two facilities that would allow freight transport from Ukraine to the Romanian Port of Constanta, in the summer, when the project to modernize the access road to customs will begin, a project carried out under a cross-border programme.

"Once we engage in the modernization activity, you can imagine that the traffic will be significantly reduced or the access to the customs will even be stopped, and this means that the customs activity may consequently be stopped during the modernization works. On the pier, there would be an option, let's say, but it's a one-way stone and dirt road. (...) We are now preparing the documents to start the auction. Think that an auction like this can last at least three months. So, somewhere after June 1 - July 1, we can discuss giving the start order. You realize that it will be a hot summer from this point of view, at the Isaccea border cross point," Mayor Moraru appreciated.

Moreover, with the completion of the Isaccea port modernization works carried out by the Galati Danube Maritime Ports Administration, a new activity will open in the area.

"In addition to customs, we will also have two loading points, and the pier will end up being the only way of access. We will be the laughing stock of the world. (...) The response received from the Ministry of Development to our request for the allocation of the funds necessary to development of the parking lot and the strengthening of the pier was simple, the ministry has no amounts allocated and, if we want to make an investment of local interest, we have to make a loan. There is a memorandum at the level of the Romanian Government concluded with the Ministry of the Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Transport, but the Ministry of Development is not a party to this memorandum which prioritizes the important projects for Isaccea, the development of the road, of the parking lot and the construction of the naval border crossing point," said the mayor of Isaccea.

Road transporters are not affected by the lack of a naval customs office, but those who choose transport on the Danube must complete the formalities in Galati or Braila, the closest naval customs points, given that such an infrastructure is also missing in the town of Tulcea.

"Recently, a memorandum was approved in the Government so that Isaccea also becomes a naval border crossing point. Documents will be exchanged with the Ukrainian side and it will be functional. That is, it will be possible to exchange goods on water, to load grain, for example from here in Isaccea, to be transported by water, just as in the past years stone was loaded here bound for Moldova, Ukraine," said Anastase Moraru.

Referring to the problems of Ukrainian drivers, he mentioned that a private investor showed interest in the placement in the city of Isaccea of some coin operated shower containers, but the discussion has not yet been completed with the issuance of a permit. Instead, the Delta Emergency Situations Inspectorate (ISU) already has two containers that will be installed after the town hall completes the electricity network.

According to the data initially provided by ISU Delta, the two containers will be opened free of charge only to people who receive assistance at the Romanian-Ukrainian border crossing point.

"We cannot afford to make packages with hot food for drivers, but I think that this could also be thought of as a business. However, I think that the best option is the one that we used at the beginning, with the non-governmental organizations that went to them and they offered them food. We recently had a discussion with the representatives of an organization to resume this activity," said the mayor of Isaccea.

Last year, after invading Ukraine, Russia imposed a blockade on ports in the Odessa area, the main loading point for Ukrainian grain for export. At the end of July, the blockade was lifted for three Ukrainian ports on the Black Sea, based on an agreement concluded in Turkey by Moscow and Kyiv, with the mediation of the United Nations, the Black Sea Grain Initiative (BSGI), but those ports are also in very high demand.

The agreement was extended by another 120 days in November and was set to expire in March, but Russia has signaled it wants to change some aspects of it and has asked for the lifting of sanctions affecting its grain exports.

Since the summer of last year, every day, hundreds of trucks transit the city of Isaccea, in some periods the drivers even wait two weeks to get from the Romanian bank of the Danube to the Ukrainian one. Long waiting times are generated by the limited capacity of the ferry that crosses the river, but also by the reduced infrastructure of the border crossing point, in the context where the Orlivka-Isaccea point is on the shortest route between the ports of Odessa and Constanta.

In recent months, waiting times for Ukrainian trailer trucks in the towns of Tulcea and Isaccea have reached several days.

In order to supplement its export capacity, near Orlivka, the customs office on the Ukrainian bank of the Danube, a naval point for loading and unloading products was set up.

The grain blockade led to several incidents on the Sulina maritime channel, the events recorded by the Tulcea Port Authority having no serious consequences on the fairway.

The Black Sea Grain Initiative (BSGI) created a transit corridor by sea and was intended to address global food shortages, with the clients of Ukrainian grain exports being some of the world's poorest countries. Developing countries such as Somalia and Eritrea also rely heavily on wheat imports from Russia.

Kyiv has repeatedly accused Russia of delaying inspections of vessels carrying Ukrainian agricultural products, which has led to losses for producers. Moscow has rejected the accusations, maintaining that it respects all its obligations under the BSGI.

On February 24, 2022, Russia launched an unprovoked and unjustified military aggression against Ukraine. Moscow claimed that it was a "special military operation to deNazify" the neighboring country and to protect the Russian-speaking community in eastern Ukraine.