TALLINN/RIGA (Reuters) – Estonia and Latvia will dispatch ships from Tuesday to bring back hundreds of their citizens stranded on the border between Germany and Poland, following Warsaw’s decision last week to shut its borders due the coronavirus outbreak, officials said.
The three Baltic countries – Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia – have criticized Poland for preventing their citizens in transit from returning home, since passage for foreigners was barred by Warsaw from Sunday morning.
While introducing border controls is allowed under the rules of the European Union’s free-movement Schengen zone, EU members must accept their own citizens returning home and ensure transit for other EU nationals seeking to go back to their homeland.
Lithuania estimates around 420 vehicles with Lithuanian number plates were stuck on the German-Polish border on Monday, and some people protested by blockading roads leading to Poland, the country’s foreign affairs ministry spokesman said.
Estonia’s government said it had agreed with ferry company Tallink to arrange a cruise ship to collect people from Sassnitz harbor in Germany late on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, Poland agreed to let buses and vans from Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia pass through its territory in five “convoys” of about twenty cars each, stopping only at designated gas stations, Lithuania said.
Poland provided five small ferries to transport cars directly to the Lithuanian port of Klaipeda, and Lithuania booked a train to return people from Germany through Poland without stopping, Lithuania said.
Lithuanian Prime Minister Saulius Skvernelis told reporters on Tuesday that Polish authorities had assured him they will keep letting vans and buses pass in regulated convoys, but cars must use ferries.
Swedish company Stena line will run a ferry trip from Travemnde to Liepaja in Latvia late on Wednesday evening and a couple of additional trips on Monday and Tuesday next week.
The Polish foreign ministry did not respond to requests for comment.
(Reporting by Tarmo Virki in Tallin, Andrius Sytas in Vilnius and Gederts Gelzis in Riga; editing by Justyna Pawlak and)
