De Palacio to drive ahead with weekend motorway truck ban

Date: 16/11/00

By Renée Cordes

TRANSPORT Commissioner Loyola de Palacio is set to spark a storm of controversy next week by reviving plans for Union-wide weekend driving restrictions on lorries.

The proposal, which is due to be approved by the full Commission next Wednesday (22 November), would ban trucks from travelling on large trans-European motorways for a 24-hour period every weekend. The restrictions would not, however, apply to smaller roads.

De Palacio will also call for the creation of a database of the restrictions in place in individual EU countries on national holidays so that member states can exchange information more easily.

In a separate proposal, she will try to break a two-year deadlock over planned working-time rules for hauliers by recommending that self-employed lorry drivers be excluded from the new restrictions for now.

Both measures are aimed at harmonising the patchwork of national restrictions now in place across the Union while ensuring the free movement of goods. Most member states appear ready to compromise on the working-time rules and are willing to put off the sensitive issue of self-employed drivers for at least a couple of years. But deep divisions remain over the proposed weekend driving restrictions.

At least five countries - led by Austria and Germany - have insisted on keeping their tough national restrictions, fearing that weaker EU rules would produce a sharp increase in traffic, resulting in heavier congestion and environmental damage.

As a result, diplomats say France will not be able to broker a wider deal to harmonise hauliers' working conditions. At best, said one, there would be a "superficial" discussion of the package at next month's meeting of transport ministers, and Paris will be forced to hand the dossier to Sweden, which takes over the EU presidency in January.

The battle over truckers' hours has been spluttering along since the Commission unveiled proposals more than two years ago to bring a range of 'excluded sectors' within the scope of Union's 1993 working-time legislation. Agreement has been reached in some areas, but it was clear from the start that a deal on road hauliers would prove the most difficult challenge.

Member states with a large number of 'owner-drivers' fear that hundreds of them would be forced out of business if they were required to comply with the directive. But other countries, including France - which has a strongly unionised transport sector staffed mainly by employee drivers - argue that independent truckers would gain an unfair advantage if they were exempt from the rules.

On 22.11.00, EU Transport Commissioner, Loyola de Palacio, is set to spark a storm of controversy by reviving plans for Union-wide weekend driving restrictions on lorries. In a separate proposal, she will try to break a two-year deadlock over planned working-time rules for hauliers by recommending that self-employed lorry drivers be excluded from the new restrictions for now.