Giving Member States the opportunity to limit the number of days of cabotage operations that a haulier from another Member State can carry out on their territory in the context of international combined transport.
This is the main provision of the new draft compromise on the revision of the Directive (92/106/EEC) relating to the international combined transport of goods, dated 21 November, which the Austrian Presidency of the European Council passed to the Member States for the meeting of their representatives ('Coreper') on Friday 23 November.
This is the main stumbling block in this dossier, echoing the proposal for a revision of the current directive presented by the European Commission in November 2017 as part of the second ‘mobility’ package (see EUROPE 11900, 12120).
Under Article 4 of the text, a haulier is exempt from the cabotage rules during an international combined transport operation, on the initial or final road leg. Negotiations on this provision are to be linked to those on the social and market aspects of the first ‘mobility’ package, and Member States should only unblock them when those on this first ‘mobility package’ are concluded (see EUROPE 12142).
At the Coreper meeting on 14 November, Denmark and Sweden reiterated their strong opposition to this article and their willingness to delete it (see EUROPE 12138). They have been broadly supported by the Road Alliance (Germany, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg and Sweden), but the Central and Eastern European States want to keep it.
In its latest draft compromise, the Austrian Presidency of the European Council advocates framing this provision. Thus, a State could provide that the final unloading of the vehicle used in an international combined transport operation takes place at least five days after its entry into the national territory in its national legal system.
This State should then also provide for a cooling-off period, before a new "cabotage right" is authorised in the context of similar operations on their territory, which could not exceed seven days.
The representatives will therefore discuss this text simultaneously with those on the first ‘mobility’ package on Friday 23 November, with the hope of reaching a political agreement ('general approach') on these dossiers for the ‘Transport’ Council meeting on 3 December. (Original version in French by Lucas Tripoteau)