Luxembourg, 10/06/2003 (Agence Europe) - Last Thursday, the Transport Council took stock of work in progress on the directive on security in tunnels proposed in January 2003 by the Commission. The legislation proposed fixes the minimum safety requirements for tunnels of over 500 metres long located on the trans-European road networks (emergency exits, ventilation, signalling, organisation of rescue teams, etc.). Above all, there is divergence over the criteria for selecting the tunnels concerned. The Commission fixed the threshold at 9000 heavy goods vehicles going through the tunnel per day, a figure that is slightly higher than for the Mont Blanc tunnel (3,500) and the Gotthard tunnel (8,500). Germany would like to fix the threshold at 10,000, while other Member States consider 9,000 is too low. The alpine countries are, moreover, opposed to the five tunnel category classification proposed by the Commission to define the nature of equipment that should be ready for use in the tunnels. Italy and Austria have proposed an alternative classification, considered by the Commission as unrealistic.