Representatives from civil society gave a mixed response to the votes from MEPs on Thursday 14 June after the latter had rejected the inter-institutional negotiating mandates with the Council of the EU (‘trialogues’) on the social and market aspects of the first mobility package (see EUROPE 12041).
The trade unions have been very active on this subject since the publication of the European Commission proposals on 31 May 2017 (see EUROPE 11799) and, on their behalf, the European Transport Workers' Federation (ETF) welcomed the results of these votes that would help to reopen the texts voted on by Parliament's transport committee on 4 June (see EUROPE 12034). Roberto Parrillo, the President of the ETF’s road transport section therefore stated, “The plenary vote of last week is a sign of great maturity, the sign we all expect from the European Parliament. We need real legal solutions to improve the social conditions in the road transport”.
The European Road Haulers Association (UETR) also said that it was pleased with these votes. Marco Digioia, the UETR’s Secretary-General stated, “We indeed did not support the exclusion of international road transport from the rules of posting. The rules on cabotage also need to be effectively controlled, and we therefore need to make sure the smart tachographs are introduced in a near future”.
The International Road Transport Union (IRU) had called on the MEPs to approve the negotiating mandate on drivers’ rest and driving time and said that they should concentrate on the July plenary session vote. According to one of their press releases, “agreements are urgently needed to ensure that the road transport sector can continue to drive the European economy”. The IRU is also calling for the specificity of passenger transport to be recognised, on the lines of what had been retained in the compromise of 4 June.
Finally, Business Europe is still in favour of excluding international transport from the rules on postings in view of the forthcoming plenary session vote. Martynas Barysas, the director of Business Europe’s internal market department stated, “It is important to understand that this limited exclusion on specific operations involves drivers who should not be considered as posted workers because they are just travelling through different countries due to the mobile nature of international transport”. (Original version in French by Lucas Tripoteau)