On the evening of Tuesday 25 March, negotiators from the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union reached a provisional political agreement on disqualifications for reckless driving (see EUROPE 13607/8).
Currently, when a driver loses their licence following an offence in a Member State other than the one in which the licence was issued, the penalty generally only applies in the country where the offence was committed. Under the agreement, any withdrawal, suspension or restriction of a driving licence will be transmitted to the Member State that issued the licence in order to ensure that the penalty is applied Europe-wide.
“By introducing clearer and more timely criteria for suspending driving privileges because of serious violations, this measure protects not only responsible drivers but the entire community”, welcomed the European Parliament rapporteur, Matteo Ricci (S&D, Italian), in a press release.
Disqualifications will be imposed for serious breaches of the Highway Code, such as: - driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs; - excessive speeding (e.g. driving 50 km/h over the speed limit); - behaviour that breaks the rules of the road and causes death or serious injury to others.
As requested by MEPs, the agreement provides for a maximum deadline of 20 working days to inform the driver concerned about a decision on their sanction and on the procedure they can use to challenge it. MEPs also secured an obligation for the European Commission to assess, five years after the entry into force of the new provisions, whether to expand the set of driving offences triggering the EU-wide application of a sanction and introduce stricter deadlines for information exchange between EU countries to enhance the implementation of new rules.
Where the Member State of the offence imposes a driving disqualification of at least three months on the driver, and all course of action by the driver against that decision has been exhausted, the Member State of the offence has to notify the Member State of issuance using a standard certificate via the EU driving licence network (RESPER).
This provisional agreement must now be approved by the Member States’ representatives in the EU Council (Coreper) and by the European Parliament in plenary session. (Original version in French by Anne Damiani)