Customs system upgrade reason for trucks waiting for hours at border

After truck drivers who have been waiting in queues for 17 hours to cross the state border with Croatia contacted N1, the Croatian Ministry of the Interior said that the cause of increased waiting times in freight traffic at certain border crossings in recent days was not the work of the border police, but the upgrade of the customs system and the consequent difficulty in carrying out customs and forwarding procedures.

– After the upgrade, freight traffic is taking place, but slowly, and vehicles with properly processed and confirmed documentation are being allowed through. The aforementioned waits are not caused by the operation of the Entry-Exit System (EES) or the implementation of border control by the police, but primarily relate to procedures within the jurisdiction of customs and forwarding services – it is specified in the statement submitted to N1.

The PE Roads of Serbia announced this morning that trucks at the Batrovci and Backa Palanka border crossings towards Croatia had been waiting for six hours, and at the Sid and Bezdan crossings for four hours. However, truck driver Aleksandar Jovanovic told N1 this morning that he had been waiting for almost 17 hours and that he was in a line on the highway, two and a half kilometers from the Sid exit.

– There are many colleagues who came before me. They are waiting because of a change in the system that is being harmonized with the European system. Official information is that the system is working, but here is the situation. We followed the truck drivers’ Viber groups, what we saw was that in the past 16 hours, according to our estimates, maybe twenty trucks have crossed the border, no more – he said.

Jovanovic added that he heard from a colleague that the customs officer said that the new customs system did not recognize documents that were made at the forwarding agency.

JP Putevi Srbije Beograd

Ministry of the Interior of Croatia

Roads of Serbia

trucks waiting for hours at border with Croatia

EES