The European Parliament has voted to extend until the end of 2025 a road transport agreement between the EU and Ukraine. Former Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki condemned the decision, calling it harmful to Polish hauliers.
“Polish transport companies, which have spent years building their market position, now find themselves on the brink. The authorities in Warsaw have simply handed them over to Brussels elites on a silver platter,” Morawiecki wrote on social media.
The agreement, first signed in June 2022, was initially aimed at facilitating the movement of essential goods—such as fuel and humanitarian aid—into Ukraine, while enabling the export of Ukrainian products like grain, ore, and steel to EU markets and beyond. It was originally set to expire in June 2025 but will now be prolonged until year-end.
The key point of contention is that the deal exempts Ukrainian hauliers from many of the stringent EU regulations that European transport companies are obliged to follow.
Morawiecki, now head of the European Conservatives and Reformists group in the European Parliament, described the extension as a blow to Polish logistics firms. He noted that most Polish MEPs voted against the deal, while Michał Kobosko, Joanna Scheuring-Wielgus, Robert Biedroń, and Krzysztof Śmiszek supported it.
He emphasized the strategic importance of the transport sector to Poland’s economy, which accounts for 7% of GDP, serves as a key driver of growth, and covers 20% of the EU’s road freight market.
According to Morawiecki, Ukrainian trucks crossed into Poland over 900,000 times in 2023—five times more than the average of 180,000 in previous years.
He warned that Polish companies will be forced out of the market by foreign competitors operating under entirely different legal and cost conditions. “This is not competition—this is displacement,” he implied.