On Tuesday, 29 January, MEPs on the European Parliament’s ‘Transport’ Committee adopted the report on electronic freight transport information, going further than the Commission would like.
In fact, the vote on this text, drafted by Claudia Schmidt (EPP, Austria), echoes the European Commission’s proposal for a regulation last May as part of the third ‘mobility’ package (see EUROPE 12022). Through it, the institution wishes to regulate electronic freight transport information, whereas almost 99% of cross-border transport operations in the EU are still associated with the use of paper documents.
While the Commission notably recommends that an operator should be able to make regulatory information required by the competent authorities and interlocutors available electronically, MEPs are calling for the operator to be obliged to do so, as Mrs Schmidt explained in her draft text (see EUROPE 12147). The operator would then be required to communicate this information via electronic platforms certified by national authorities.
Furthermore, MEPs want issues related to the regulatory information concerned to be defined by the Commission by means of delegated acts, not implementing acts. They also recommend strengthening commercial and personal data protection.
Finally, it should be noted that in this report, the MEPs leave the door open to extending the scope of this future regulation to business-to-business relations in future.
Although MEPs have defined their position here, interinstitutional negotiations (‘trilogues’) cannot begin as is. In fact, a single progress report was validated by the ministers at the EU Transport Council meeting on 3 December last (see EUROPE 12151). It is now up to the Romanian Presidency of the Council to try to reach a political agreement among Member States. (Original version in French by Lucas Tripoteau)