EU DELEGATION HEAD VISITS PALANCA CUSTOMS STATION

Ambassador Peter Michalko, Head of the European Union Delegation to Moldova visited the modernized customs station in the village of Palanca at the Moldovan-Ukrainian border.

First of all, he visited the local center of family medicine, gymnasium, children daycare center and the village primaria.

As a gift to the locality from the EU Delegation, he handed over keys from a KIA S.U.V to the local mayor Larisa Voloh, expressing confidence that the vehicle will be used by the medical center and the primaria for the benefit of all Palanca residents.

Voloh highly assessed the EU efforts on contributing to the development of localities in the republic.

Later, Michalko together with Director of the Moldovan Customs Service Vitalie Vrabie inspected the objects at the customs station. Starting from January 2019, Ukrainian and Moldovan customs officers are conducting joint control of passengers and cargoes, crossing the border.

Speaking to journalists, he said that this section of the border was equipped in accordance with European standards.

As Infotag has already reported, the Palanca checkpoint is located on an area of 2.6 ha. There will be 10 traffic lanes at entrance and exit: two each for cars, two for trucks and one for pedestrians and cyclists. There will also be a zone of control for pedestrians and cyclists.

Authors of the modernization project suppose that the number of people who cross the border via this station should double - to 600 thousand citizens and 570 thousand vehicles per year.

The improved checkpoint is connected with the highway Odessa-Reni by means of a new access road, for which the Moldovan Government additionally allocated 630 thousand euros. Thus, the contribution of Moldovan authorities grew to 1.68 million from the initial 1.06 million. The total budget of modernizing the Palanca customs station is assessed at 6.18 million euros, 4.5 million of which were provided by the EU.