WARSAW (Reuters) – The European Union and Russia agree it is necessary to come up with a plan concerning the movement of goods between the Russian mainland and the Kaliningrad exclave, Poland’s prime minister said on Thursday.
Reuters reported on Wednesday that European officials are in talks about exempting the territory from sanctions, which have hit industrial goods such as steel so far, paving the way for a deal in early July if EU member Lithuania drops its reservations.
Kaliningrad, which is bordered by European Union states and relies on railways and roads through Lithuania for most goods, has been cut off from some freight transport from mainland Russia since June 17 under sanctions imposed by Brussels.
“Both sides concluded that it is worth agreeing a plan that will not violate de facto implementation of the sanctions, because, frankly speaking, the Kaliningrad Oblast is a very small part of Russia,” Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told a news conference.
Lithuania, formerly ruled from Moscow, is now one of Russia’s fiercest critics in the EU and has been at odds with officials in Germany and Brussels who want to defuse the row.
“Poland supports Lithuania as much as possible in its discussion together with the European Commission in the area of developing… an appropriate mechanism in the flow of goods between Kaliningrad and Russia proper,” Morawiecki said.
(Reporting by Alan Charlish, Anna Koper, Pawel Florkiewicz; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
