During an exchange of views with MEPs from the Transport and Tourism Committee on Monday 5 December, the Commissioner for Transport, Violeta Bulc, indicated that the revised version of the directive on posted workers would contain an exception for the road transport sector.
It should be pointed out that during the November plenary session, France announced at the time that it wanted to include the road transport sector in the revision of the directive, in an effort to combat social dumping as practiced by certain companies in Central and Eastern European member states.
France suggested to the Commissioner for Transport (see EUROPE 11673) that a European road transport inspection agency should be set up. The Commission immediately made known that a “tailor-made” solution was preferable, a position that the Commissioner confirmed to MEPs with the announcement of a specific “module” for this sector. France has actually backtracked on this point but is, nonetheless, still seeking to remove Clause No. 10 from the 1996 directive, which underlines the legal difficulties experienced by road hauliers due to the high level of mobility experienced in the sector (see EUROPE 11683).
The road haulage sector was at the heart of the talks with the Commissioner. MEPs were openly critical with regard to the agreement reached between the European Commission and Germany on the latter’s road tariff project (see EUROPE 11680). Many of them, like Ismail Ertug (S&D, Germany), interpreted this as a concession made by the President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, to Angela Merkel, who has declared her candidacy for re-election as German chancellor. Others said that the agreement was not respecting the non-discrimination principle based on nationality and was undermining efforts to decarbonise the transport sector.
In this regard, the Commissioner explained that the German proposal does in fact respect the proportionality and non-discrimination principles. The road tariff programme had been effectively been “decoupled” from the tax exemption initially planned for German citizens. Furthermore, the Commissioner does not have any scope on questions relating to tariffs. She did, however, clarify the fact that the infringement procedure has been suspended but not withdrawn and that the Commission was now awaiting the final version of the law published in the official German journal.
The latter has been a particularly controversial subject. The Netherlands and Austria have already indicated that they intended to go to European Court of Justice to protest against the German draft law. Some EPP MEPs also protested against the agreement (see EUROPE 11682). (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)