The Slovenian Presidency of the Council of the EU, speaking to the members of the Land transport Working Party on Monday 4 October, presented the possible options regarding the main stumbling blocks in the negotiations on vehicles hired without drivers in road freight transport (2006/1/EC) (see EUROPE 12786/7).
Among the outstanding policy issues, top of the list is still the time limit for the rental of a vehicle, over which a Member State may decide to restrict its use.
For the EU Council, the approach is based on a maximum of 30 days. The European Parliament favours a four-month period.
“This is the main issue to be addressed. Some countries do not want to go beyond 30 days, for tax reasons. This could allow some companies to avoid registration fees in other member states and would make cabotage control much more complicated”, a source close to the matter told EUROPE.
Several options have been tabled by the EU Council in order to reach a compromise. The first of these would give Member States the possibility of requiring the registration of a vehicle when the authorisation period expires.
A variant of this option could be to introduce a guaranteed period of two consecutive months of use, with the possibility for the Member State to require registration of the vehicle in its territory after 30 days of use,despite the guaranteed period.
This variant, in the EU Council’s view, could be “less convincing” for the user, who would then see the vehicle rental contract divided “into a period during which no registration is required and a period during which the vehicle may have to be registered in case of further use in the territory”.
The possibility of an exceptional extension
Finally, the Council Presidency suggests that a minimum guaranteed period of use of 30 consecutive days should be set and that Member States should be able to require that the rental contract be limited to this period.
However, the company could request an extension, provided that it can prove that it is necessary, for “seasonal demand” or “operational requirements”, the EU Council text details.
In addition to the rental period, the issue of the number of vehicles in the overall fleet was also raised by the Slovenian Presidency of the Council. On this issue, the EU Council notes “very similar general intentions” with the European Parliament.
In this respect, the EU Council puts forward the idea of a possible limitation of the number of leased vehicles, setting a limit of 25% of the fleet of a freight transport company.
A common position should be adopted by the member states’ ambassadors to the EU on 20 October, with a view to the start of inter-institutional negotiations on 26 October, a diplomatic source told EUROPE.
See the document: https://bit.ly/3p0jPum (Original version in French by Thomas Mangin)