The remote meeting of the Transport Council scheduled for Monday 28 September (see EUROPE 12568/2) was interrupted after a few minutes for technical reasons.
The speeches of the European Commissioner for Transport, Adina Vălean, and the Dutch and French ministers, Cora van Nieuwenhuizen and Jean-Baptiste Djebbari, were, in some cases, only partially audible, making the work of the interpreters considerably more difficult.
As these difficulties could not be resolved in time, the German Minister of Transport, Andreas Scheuer, who was chairing the meeting, took the decision to end it, considering it impossible to work under those conditions on such technical subjects.
A new meeting will be announced shortly, the German Ministry of Transport assured on Twitter. The date will be set within the next 2 weeks, according to a spokesperson for the German Presidency.
The ministers were to discuss the German proposal to draw up an emergency plan for the movement of goods within the EU in the event of a pandemic (see EUROPE 12510/19) on Monday.
Expectations of the Commission
The first speaker, Ms Vălean, had time to welcome this initiative, arguing that it was indeed inconceivable that in the event of a future crisis the movement of freight would be impeded, as was the case this spring (see EUROPE 12452/14).
In particular, she stressed that any action plan should be discussed with the national bodies responsible for health and home affairs.
With regard to the measures aimed at establishing temporary exemptions (see EUROPE 12457/21, 12491/16, 12562/29), the Commissioner then stressed the importance of establishing provisions adapted to each mode of transport in this plan.
Finally, she argued that the implementation of this plan should not be to the detriment of the safety and working conditions of workers in the sector (see EUROPE 12453/6, 12456/7).
For the record, a presentation by the Commission of its amended proposal for recasting the Single European Sky Regulation (SES2+) (see EUROPE 12565/1) was also on the agenda. (Original version in French by Agathe Cherki)