Hauliers caught up in border disputes
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• British truck drivers were stranded for five days at Greece's border with Yugoslavia this week, as Greek hauliers launched a protest against increased transit charges through Hungary.
One Briton, Steve Chambers of Manchester, told CM from a service station on the border: "There's about 15 of us from Britain here. I'm not happy at all — I'm an owner-driver and I'm losing money."
Lorry drivers were also held up at border crossings across much of Europe on Monday when Customs agents stopped work in a bid to win compensation for up to 100,000 of their colleagues they say will lose their jobs with the advent of the Single Market next year.
Queues were particularly long at [run and La Junquera on France's border with Spain, at Strasbourg on the French-German border, and on the FrenchBelgian border.
Around 100 freight brokers at Dover staged a one-hour token stoppage, although trucks travelling through the port were unaffected. The Single Market will lead to redundancy for 5,000 UK Customs agents, including 1,250 at Dover, says Terry Stone of the Institute of Freight Forwarders.
"Unlike on the Continent, we took the decision to be non-disruptive," he says. "We have no argument with the freight industry.