70% of persons who cross Cuchurgan – Pervomaisk post daily are Moldovans going to the seaside

About 70% of the persons who daily go through the Cuchurgan – Pervomaisk border crossing point in summer are citizens of Moldova who go to the Black Sea in Ukraine. Most of them get to the customs in the evening or in the morning of weekends. The information was presented during a press tour organized by the EU Border Assistance Mission to Moldova and Ukraine, Info-Prim Neo reports. About 20,000 people cross the border through this point every day. “It is the closest to the Black Sea and Odessa. More than a half of the 4,000 units of transport that go through this point daily have Moldovan license numbers,” said the head of the border guards division of the Cuchurgan crossing point, Alexandr Bejan. A number of people waiting to be allowed to cross the border said they stay by 2-3 hours in the customs. At the same tine, representatives of the customs post said a car is checked during two minutes on average, but the queues are long, especially in summer. A solution is to increase the number of waiting lanes and the number of customs employees. Vadim Peshcheanskii, the deputy head of the contraband and border offenses combating division, said that one of the most frequent offenses is the non-declaration of the money held and goods transported, especially cigarettes and alcoholic beverages. “Owing to the EUBAM, we work according to the European standards,” he said. Established in November 2005 at the joint request of the Presidents of Moldova and Ukraine, the Mission assists with the modernization of management of the Moldovan-Ukrainian border and contributes towards the settlement of the Transnistrian conflict. The Mission’s current mandate runs until November 30, 2011. “We will be here until the Moldovan and Ukrainian authorities need our assistance. Within this period, we started to know better the problems faced by our partners. Progress was made in this respect. We are to discuss the possibility of resuming the Odessa-Chisinau train route with the Transnistrian side,” said Jean Pierre Albarelle, the head of the Cuchurgan local office of the EUBAM. The Cuchurgan local office is responsible for 213 kilometers of the Moldovan-Ukrainian border. This section contains 74 kilometers of the Transnistrian region’s border.