12/02/2009 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 12 February, the Council, European Parliament and European Commission reached an in principle agreement in a second reading on the roads package presented in May 2007, to consolidate market access rules and the road haulage profession The Council and Parliament opposed each other on three points: cabotage (limited by the Council to three consecutive seven day operations, including those in transit countries); implementation of national electronic registers for transport companies; rest times for bus drivers (introduction of twelve day rule imposing obligatory rest periods on drivers). The Czech transport minister, Petr Bendl, said on 9 February that one of the possible compromises would be to set up a link between the “12 day” rule sought by Parliament and cabotage, on which the Council does not want to back down. Two other trialogue meetings are planned, however, (the first on 3 March) to help get the parties to rework the technical details in the agreement. (A.By.)