Brussels, 10/10/2008 (Agence Europe) - Meeting in Council in Luxembourg on Thursday 9 October 2008, most EU transport ministers rejected the draft directive to facilitate the cross-border application of road safety legislation (see EUROPE 9626). The French Presidency of the Council was invited to prepare a draft compromise for the Transport Council on 9 December 2008.
After an initial policy debate, the Council disagreed on the question of the legal basis for the draft directive (Article 71 of the EC Treaty on road safety), with most Member States (Germany, Poland, Slovakia, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, the Czech Republic, Romania, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Luxembourg, Malta, Finland, Latvia and Lithuania) wanting the legislation to come under the third pillar (police and criminal cooperation and JHA). These countries feel that possible solutions would be either applying the 'Prum Decision' that allows for the exchange of data in the war on terror (Finland) or a framework decision on the matter (the other countries). Conversely, Austria, Belgium, Spain, Italy and Slovenia called for the introduction of common EU road safety rules and therefore back the European Commission's proposal. Greece, Cyprus and Bulgaria want a 'first pillar' solution but said they were prepared to compromise. Hungary called for measures on criminal penalties to be removed from the draft directive and for the introduction instead of other measures to boost cooperation (mutual recognition of administrative penalties and mutual recognition of proof of infringement). Portugal said that the withdrawal of the penalties from the directive (one of the options suggested by the French Presidency) would waken the directive's scope.
Unveiled in March 2008, the draft directive aims to facilitate the cross-border application of penalties by setting up a data exchange system among authorities responsible for vehicle licensing. The system would enable each Member State to get information about the identity of the owner of vehicles in which infringements of road safety legislation occur (crossing red lights, drunk driving, not wearing a safety belt and breaking speeding limits). (A. By trans fl)