The Croatian Presidency of the Council of the European Union sent a document to the Council Working Party on Land Transport on Tuesday 7 January to relaunch discussions on the revision of the Directive on the use of vehicles hired without drivers for the carriage of goods by road (2006/1).
Being strongly linked to the social and market aspects of the 'mobility I' package, in particular the revision of the cabotage and market access regulations (1071/2009 and 1072/2009), this dossier has been held hostage due to the lack of progress in this area. It has been stuck in the Council for over a year.
Noting this deadlock, the Transport Ministers of the Member States had only adopted a progress report at the Transport Council in June 2019 (see EUROPE 12270/7).
However, the situation has recently changed. As an agreement between the co-legislators on the social and market aspects of the first mobility package was finally reached on Thursday 12 December (see EUROPE 12389/7) and approved on Friday 20 December by the representatives of the Member States to the European Union (Coreper) (see EUROPE 12395/7), the Croatian Presidency believes that there are no longer any obstacles to resuming discussions on the cross-border hire of vehicles without drivers for road freight.
The document forwarded by Zagreb thus states that, at the meeting of the Working Party on Land Transport on 13 January, national delegations will be asked whether their position has changed since the Transport Council in June 2019.
Contents of the latest draft compromise. At present, Directive 2006/1 allows a Member State to restrict the use of vehicles hired by undertakings established on its territory to those registered in the Member State and, in addition, to prohibit the use of hired vehicles with a gross vehicle mass exceeding six tonnes for own-account operations.
In proposing to revise the Directive, the European Commission's main aim is to remove existing restrictions and to create a level playing field across the EU to allow companies in this sector to use leased vehicles in any Member State, not just the one where they are established. In this way, it hopes to increase the operational flexibility of these companies.
According to the latest draft compromise on the table, which led to the adoption of the progress report in June (see EUROPE 12251/17), each Member State should allow the use on its territory of vehicles leased by undertakings established in the territory of another Member State, provided that the vehicle is registered or put into circulation in accordance with the legislation of any Member State.
However, when the hired vehicle is registered or put into circulation in accordance with the law of another Member State, the Member State of establishment of the undertaking hiring the vehicle could set a limit on the use of that vehicle in its territory. This limit would be a minimum of 30 consecutive days in a calendar year.
The draft compromise also provides that the Member State in which the undertaking is established may limit the number of rented vehicles which may be used by the undertaking to a maximum of 25% of the total fleet owned by the undertaking (and to one vehicle, if the undertaking owns two or three).
Furthermore, in the case of the hiring of a vehicle registered or put into circulation in accordance with the legislation of another Member State and having a maximum permissible laden mass not exceeding 3.5 tonnes, the Member State in which the undertaking is established could limit its use to own-account transport operations.
Finally, there seems to be a grey area in the draft compromise. It does not deal with the situation in which an undertaking established in State A leases a vehicle registered in State B for use on the soil of State C.
According to information gathered by EUROPE, it is difficult to know whether this legal failure is simply an oversight caused by the numerous amendments made to the Commission's initial text or whether it was done deliberately in an attempt to liberalise the sector as much as possible or to circumvent the rules on establishment and cabotage. (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)