Drivers of cars registered in Belarus tried to enter Latvia only around midnight when the entry ban had just come into force.
"It was four cars in particular. It was literally the first half hour after midnight there. There is no fuss. Literally some cars that wanted to come in after midnight had to be turned back. They were, as far as you can understand, people who thought they would succeed, but they didn't," explained Taivo Hanzens, Acting Head of the Pāternieki Customs Control Point.
No attempts to enter were detected during the following day. However, in the exit queue, almost one in three cars was registered in Belarus. Drivers have been informed of the new rules and are already thinking of ways to circumvent them.
"Yes, yes, we heard. (...) You can come by bus, or minibus, via Lithuania. You can not come at all and look for work here," said Leonid, a Belarusian citizen.
"No Belarusian cars passed by all this time, as far as I could see after midnight. As a Belarusian car owner, of course, I was against it. We will try to get back through Lithuania if we can. If Lithuania closes [the border], we will have to do it without a car, by bus," said Sergei, a Belarusian from Lithuania.
"This makes our work easier. If there are 83 vehicles per day on average, it means that all the operations that used to have to be carried out with them will not have to be carried out by the border guards or customs. They will be able to focus on more trucks, for example," explained Hanzens.
So far, around 100 cars per day on average have entered the Krāslava Region with Belarusian-registered plates.
"Most of them are people coming to work. For example, the same drivers queuing up in the lorries are coming from Belarus, say, to Lithuania. There are also other people who are going somewhere further away to work. Tourists are a minority," said Hanzens.
The ban on vehicles registered in Belarus entering Latvia through the Latvian-Belarusian and Latvian-Russian border crossing points was introduced following the entry into force of a European Union regulation. The sanctions against Belarus are aligned with the bans imposed on Russia and therefore also affect the light transport sector.
"As Belarusians, we believe that the timing is wrong. As far as private transport is concerned... we don't buy or sell cars. This is our car, which is a means of transport. Cars like this could be allowed", says Sergei, a Minsk resident.
This week, the Ministry of Justice is drafting a law to ban Belarusian-registered vehicles from road traffic in Latvia and from crossing the border in transit. It is planned that if cars evade the requirements, they could be confiscated and sent to Ukraine.
