News

On 25 January Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Petras Vaitiekūnas discussed with the heads of  the Lithuanian National Road Carriers’ Association ‘Linava’ and carriers’ representatives Latvian Government’s decision of October 2006 that limited the entry of the trucks to Latvia thus causing unnatural lines of outbound  trucks on Lithuanian-Latvian border.

Foreign Ministry representatives acquainted the participants of the meeting with Lithuanian-Latvian  bilateral and the European Union’s legal documents and possibility to apply them when claiming the compensation of losses.

Information about the course of Lithuanian-Latvian bilateral political and economic cooperation, initial assessment of the situation given by the European Commission’s representatives were also provided.

“Lithuanian Foreign Ministry will continue to raise the issue of last year’s crisis at Lithuanian-Latvian border crossing point on the intergovernmental level of  Lithuanian-Latvian  relations. This crisis caused losses to Lithuanian and foreign carriers,” Deividas Matulionis, Director of Economic Security Policy Department of Foreign Ministry said.

According to the President of ‘Linava’ Algimantas Kondrusevičius, Lithuanian carriers sustained losses of about 8 million litas because of illegitimate actions of Latvian Government.  The losses may change considerably, because the carriers will have to validate them.

Representatives of the Ministry of Transport and Communications also took part in the meeting. The participants of the meeting agreed that it is necessary to prevent similar situation from repeating.