Polish lawmakers want a blunt rule for rail freight: no access for Polish carriers abroad, no access for foreign carriers at home. At the centre of the dispute sits UZ Cargo Poland, a subsidiary of Ukraine’s state railway, and a market that stays open on one side of the border and closed on the other.
The company was registered on 30 June 2023 as Ukrainian Railways Cargo Poland, wholly owned by Ukrzaliznycia. A year later it won a rail freight licence and a single EU safety certificate. Its Polish share stays marginal: it is absent from the rail regulator’s 2025 list of carriers holding at least 2 percent and from the January-July 2026 list above 0.5 percent.
Access for access
Law and Justice MPs drafted an amendment to the Railway Transport Act allowing licence refusal to a company controlled from outside the EU when reciprocity is missing. It reached a first reading in the Sejm Infrastructure Committee on 1 September. The test covers control, not just registration.
– We give our market to a country that is not in the European Union, and it does not give us access to its market. Every percent of cargo market taken away in Poland may decide about the profitability of PKP Cargo or Orlen Paliwa – said MP Kacper Płażyński.
Michał Moskal, who handles the issue with Płażyński, says the Ukrainian side pressed Orlen to cut fees for fuel transport to Ukraine by blocking wagon entries. In August 2025 the company announced the first delivery of petroleum products from Hamburg to the Ukrainian border without transshipment, in 1435 mm tank cars owned by Ukrzaliznycia, with UZ Cargo Poland as the main logistics operator on the EU section.
Moskal argues that Polish carriers face not a comparable company but a vertically integrated state monopolist outside EU rules, which separate carriers from infrastructure managers. Warsaw made that shift 25 years ago, Kyiv has not. He calls the sub-0.5 percent share misleading: the market reached 217.8 million tonnes in 2025, mostly coal, aggregates, ores and domestic flows, while the Ukrainian operator concentrates on cross-border traffic, transshipment and fuels.
A bridge rather than a takeover
Mykhailo Plastun, president of UZ Cargo Poland, says the model rests on cooperation with carriers already in Poland, including PKP Cargo, Orlen Kolej, LTG Cargo Polska and Freightliner. About half of the staff are Poles.
– We do not want to replace Polish railway companies. We want to build together with them an efficient and competitive transport corridor Ukraine – Poland – European Union. Poland is more than a market for us: it is a key partner and a natural gateway connecting the Ukrainian railway system with the European Union – said Mykhailo Plastun.
The company says it does not plan a strategic entry into the domestic Polish freight market within five years. In August it reported a record train of 64 tank cars, 818 metres and 5,100 tonnes, hauled by two Lithuanian locomotives through Dorohusk-Jagodzin on 1435 mm track.
Infrastructure may weigh more than market share. Ukraine is building a 70-kilometre standard-gauge line from Mościska at the Polish border to Skniłów near Lviv, due in 2027, with a terminal that will compete with Polish transshipment hubs, Sławków included. Moskal asks who will operate that traffic and whether Warsaw secures access for Polish carriers in talks with the European Commission, warning that PKP Cargo or PKP LHS could become subcontractors on their own territory.
War, EU law and the long road
Marcin Witczak, president of Laude Smart Intermodal, which serves Polish-Ukrainian links through a terminal in Zamość, backs reciprocity but questions the method and the timing.
– The concept of introducing reciprocity in rail relations between Ukraine and Poland is absolutely right and needed. A completely different matter is the manner and timing of introducing changes. Neither war nor a mandatory mode are allies here – said Marcin Witczak.
Roughly 70 percent of Laude’s intermodal traffic was built through dialogue, he says, though in Ukraine the company orders container transport from a public carrier holding a monopoly.
– Today Ukrzaliznycia is not able to let us onto the tracks as an independent carrier. It is not prepared for it because of the ongoing war. Rail routes are arteries that determine the supply of the armed forces – said Marcin Witczak.
– With one clear reservation: we start implementing any arrangements after the fighting ends permanently – said Pavel Kalasko, vice-president for eastern markets at Laude Smart Intermodal.
EU law sets no explicit reciprocity test for rail licences and refers to cross-border agreements, while reserving the right to define transport rules with third countries. The MPs accept their bill may clash with EU regulations. Accession could settle the matter: the European Council decided in December 2023 to open talks with Ukraine, negotiations began in June 2024 and screening of EU transport law ended in September 2025, yet by September 2026 the transport policy cluster had not been opened. The European Commission points to a competitive freight market, equal infrastructure access and an independent regulator.
Źródło: WNP.PL, Fot. Wojtek Jargiło / PAP
