Brussels, 16/06/2016 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 16 June, the European Commission sent Denmark and Finland to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) for failing to properly implement EU legislation on cabotage for road transport.
Cabotage means temporary transport of goods in a country by non-residents, which aims to improve the efficiency of road freight transport by reducing empty trips after the unloading of international transport operations.
The two Scandinavian countries have allegedly failed to apply cabotage in line with various provisions of the cabotage regulation laying down common rules for access to the international road freight market (Regulation 1072/2009). The regulation allows hauliers with a Community licence to perform up to three national carriage operations in a member state other than their own, following the unloading of an international transport, a practice known as cabotage. There are no further restrictions under EU law.
Finnish law, however, limits cabotage to ten operations in a three-month period. The Commission considers that this additional restriction is not warranted. Additionally, under the regulation each cabotage operation may involve several loading and unloading points. However, Finnish law considers that each loading or unloading constitutes a cabotage operation. The Commission is awaiting corrective legislation from the Finnish parliament, which is due to be passed shortly.
Under Danish law, a single cabotage operation can involve several loading “or” unloading points, but not both. In the Commission's view, these further restrictions are also not warranted.
The Commission sent reasoned opinions to Denmark (see EUROPE 11397) and Finland on 24 September 2015 and 29 April 2015 respectively. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)