Brussels, 23/05/2007 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday, the European Commission adopted a new legislative package to simplify and clarify the rules on admission to the occupation of road transport operator and access to the road transport market. The new package comprises three draft regulations and a report on the impact of excluding self-employed drivers from the scope of the working time directive and is intended to consolidate existing legislation, for instance by re-defining “cabotage” and requiring transport companies to employ a transport manager. The proposals also provide for mechanisms for imposing sanctions across national borders. The Commission says that the “proposed regulations will reduce distortions of competition and improve transport operators' compliance with the provisions of social legislation and road safety rules”.
The draft regulation establishing common rules for the exercise of the profession of road transport operator will replace directive 96/26 which sets the minimum requirements for entry to this profession and will bring uniformity to national legislation on this issue. Companies wishing to become transport operators will in future have to employ a properly trained transport manager (140 hours of training and an examination) who will be responsible for the management of the transport company's traffic. This manager will be responsible for any offences committed by the company and could be disqualified from working as a transport manager within the EU for a period of two years.
The proposal will also require companies to have an office and an operating centre, to eliminate “letterbox companies”. Companies will also have to be able to provide proof of their financial standing on the basis of financial indicators relating to their short-term solvency or on the basis of bank guarantees. Member states will be authorised to check companies' activities by means of spot checks which will take place more frequently than the systematic five-yearly checks provided for in the current legislation. Some rules from the old directive will, however, be retained, including the three conditions (good repute, financial capacity, professional ability) that a company must meet to be able to gain admission to the profession, mutual recognition of qualifications, the form of the certificate of professional competence and the list of subjects to be known in order to be able to obtain this certificate.
The draft regulation establishing common rules for admission to the bus and coach services market seeks to reinforce the capacities and competences of national authorities on awarding or revoking transporters' licences in the event of a serious infringement (the list of such infringements remains to be drawn up) or several minor infringements of Community legislation after previous obligatory warning by the authorities. To combat bogus self-employed drivers, identified in the report adopted at the same time, the Commission plans to introduce a new measure, to be adopted in the course of this year, preventing self-employed drivers from calling upon the services of the transport manager of a company for which they act as sub-contractors. National authorities will also be required to ensure more efficient monitoring of transporters by setting up interoperable electronic registers throughout the EU by 2010.
Access to the international road freight transport market will be the subject of the third regulation. Once adopted, this will detail and facilitate the application of the notion of “cabotage”. Cabotage must be limited to no more than three operations to be carried out in a country other than transporters' country of residence within a period of seven days.
Finally, the Commission also adopted a report on the application of the working time directive to self-employed drivers. The report calls upon the member states to apply the directive forcefully to bogus self-employed drivers. It draws attention to the drawbacks of an excessively wide extension of the directive to genuine self-employed drivers and confirms the need to amend the directive. (aby)