On Thursday 1 June in Luxembourg, the European Transport Ministers discussed the Directive on the exchange of cross-border information on road traffic offences. They all showed their support for this initiative, but were concerned about the administrative overload it could generate.
This initiative, presented by the European Commission in March, aims to improve road safety and allow EU-wide driving disqualifications in the event of an accident or serious offence. The Swedish Presidency of the Council of the EU has already presented several compromises (see EUROPE 13176/4).
Although some Member States wish to broaden the scope of the Directive, i.e. the number of offences to be shared, others, such as Romania, fear that this would, on the contrary, overburden the national authorities. “We would also like to include offences that are less dangerous for our society, such as illegal stopping or parking, but we run the risk of ending up in a situation where the competent national authorities will be faced with an immeasurable administrative burden to identify those responsible for the offence”, argued the Romanian Secretary of State, Constantin Gabriel Bunduc. He also referred to the costs of certain measures, which are “not acceptable”.
The European Commissioner for Transport, Adina Vălean, made the same point: “If we extend the scope to too many fields we might end up with a tool that is not effective and does not work well in practice, it may not only weaken the message to the citizens on prioritizing Road Safety, but also limit the dissuasive effect that we are trying to achieve”.
For the Czech Republic, it is the mutual assistance between authorities in identifying the person presumed responsible that poses a problem in terms of administrative overload. Belgium, for its part, mentioned the identification of drivers on the basis of photographs, which could overburden the relevant services and also raises questions of respect for privacy. Estonia, for its part, pointed out that the requirement to make information available in all EU languages would also exacerbate this problem.
The Netherlands raised another issue: the liability of the licence plate holder and the liability of the driver. Each country applies a different principle of responsibility. “The Netherlands applies the principle of liability of the licence plate holder for the traffic violation and therefore only provides information about the licence plate holder and not about the driver”, emphasised Minister Mark Harbers.
Work on this Directive is expected to continue. (Original version in French by Anne Damiani)