Finnish Minister of Transport Anu Vehviläinen has rejected a Russian proposal to move cross-border goods transport between Finland and Russia from road to railway and ports, arguing that this will be against the principles of the World Trade Organisation.
He is supported by Antti Seppälä from the Finnish Transport and Logistics organisation (SKAL) who maintains that "it is rather impossible to shift container shipping onto railway and ships given the fact that almost all of it is currently being shipped by road," the Finnish News Agency (STT) reports for Newsroom Finland.
He believes the change would result in chaos with border officials in ports and railway crossing points unable to handle the by far bigger work load.
Also Finnish Railways (VR) rejected the proposal. However the state-owned company admits that an increase in rail container shipping could be a good move in the times of recession, STT reports.
Representatives of the Finnish Green Party meanwhile argue that the bigger use of railway would have a major environmental benefit, reducing emissions from the road transport sector.
Finland is the EU’s main transit country for trade with Russia. Over the last couple of years, huge queues of trucks have lined up on both sides of the Finnish-Russian border for customs handling.
Better cross-border flows of goods and personnel is a priority for both countries. In a recent meeting between Russian Customs Head Andrey Belyaninov and Finnish Customs Authority leader Tapani Erling, the parties discussed ways of increasing efficiency of Russian-Finnish state border checkpoints, including development of the advance electronic sharing of information about transported goods system and modernization of customs and transport infrastructure above all. In that meeting the two customs leaders also concluded about the need for more active usage of railway transport and the Baltic ports’ potential, a press release from the Russian Customs Service reads.