On the night of 17 November, Poland reopened the Bobrowniki and Kuźnica Białostocka border checkpoints on the border with Belarus. Poles, and above all, the entrepreneurs of the Podlaskie region, who suffered significant losses due to the border closure, are not hiding their joy. Many note that Poland has demonstrated its strength not through the decision to blockade, but precisely through the decision to reopen the border checkpoints.Meanwhile, a gloomy mood prevails in neighboring Lithuania. The authorities shut the border with Belarus without properly calculating the consequences. Due to Vilnius's actions, over a thousand trucks remain stranded on the Belarusian side. Lithuanian haulers are demanding their authorities rectify the situation, which is causing massive losses both to the transport companies and the state budget.
‘This is the driving force of our economy.’ Business in Podlaskie is reviving
"This was an independent decision and is connected to pressure from local residents,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk stated ahead of the reopening of the two border checkpoints with Belarus.
According to Poland's RMF24 radio, the government's decision was preceded by consultations with local authorities and businesses in the Podlaskie region, who had long called on Warsaw to restore cross-border traffic, which is crucial for the region's economy.A reminder, one of the largest border checkpoints on the Polish-Belarusian border, Kuźnica Białostocka (Bruzgi on the Belarusian side), was unilaterally closed by Poland in November 2021. This led to a significant increase in traffic and long queues at the Bobrowniki (Berestovitsa) checkpoint, which at the time remained the only functioning border checkpoint on the Belarusian-Polish section of the state border in Grodno Oblast. However, in February 2023, the Polish side closed Bobrowniki as well. Thus, not a single active border checkpoint remained in the Grodno direction.
