Finland is asking Russia to discontinue levying the newly-introduced vehicle charge on the of the two nations. Collecting the fee has slowed down traffic across the eastern considerably.
"Our starting point is that Russia suspend or give up levying the charge within the next couple of days, or that alternative solutions are introduced", verifies ministerial advisor Jouko Alaluusua from the Ministry of Transport and Communications.
In mid-April Russia introduced a 100-rouble (3-euro) charge on all cars and buses crossing the Finnish-Russian border. The fee for an empty truck is 200 roubles.
"The charge itself is minimal, but it requires two visits to one service window and one visit to another. As a result, all traffic is slowed down considerably", Alaluusua explains.
At the Vaalimaa border crossing station, last week's queuing time peak into Russia reached eight hours at its worst. Other frontier crossing-points also reported considerable piling up.
This week the queuing times have been shorter, mainly because there is less traffic. The border formalities now take between one and three hours when crossing over to Russia in a private car.
The Southeast Finland Border Guard District estimates that the number of Finns crossing the border has dropped by a third since the introduction of the fee.
Finnish authorities have contacted the Russian Ministry of Transport, the Customs, and the Russian Embassy in Helsinki on the matter. Alaluusua points out that "the ball is now in the Russian court".
Finland's Minister of Transport and Communications Susanna Huovinen (SDP) considers the fee that Russia collects from Finnish trucks to be in violation of the road traffic agreement between the two countries.
