The road transport agreement and the open border

International road haulage is normally governed by bilateral permits: a fixed number of journeys per year, exchanged between two countries and allocated to hauliers. It is a quota system for trucks.

What the permit system did

Limited how much freight could move by road between Ukraine and each member state, regardless of demand. A haulier without a permit could not run the journey, and permits were scarce, allocated administratively and therefore valuable.

When sea routes closed and road became a primary corridor, the permit ceiling became a binding constraint on trade itself.

What liberalisation changed

The agreement removed the permit requirement for journeys between Ukraine and the Union and for transit. Capacity became a function of how many trucks and drivers existed rather than how many pieces of paper had been exchanged.

Volumes rose immediately, which demonstrates that the constraint had been administrative.

The dispute

Hauliers in neighbouring member states objected: Ukrainian operators have lower costs and, without permits, could compete freely on routes those hauliers had regarded as protected.

The complaint is a straightforward competition one and it is legitimate. Border blockades by protesting hauliers followed, which harmed both sides.

Where it settled

Renewal with review mechanisms and monitoring, rather than a return to permits. The direction is towards the arrangement that will apply on accession, when road transport within the Union is liberalised by definition.

The general observation

Liberalisation produces winners and losers, the losers are concentrated and organised, and a measure introduced as an emergency support becomes a permanent negotiation.

The permit system going meant a direct fall in my haulage costs — volume began to follow demand rather than permits. The dispute that followed was not unexpected either: once capacity was freed, the neighbour's own hauliers experienced it as competition. The general observation is that liberalisation produces its winners and its losers at the same moment, and the second group speaks more loudly.