Proposal for a Council Decision on the position to be adopted, on behalf of the European Union, in the Group of Experts on the European agreement concerning the work of crews of vehicles engaged in international road transport (AETR) of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe

The European agreement concerning the work of crews of vehicles engaged in international road transport (European Road Transport Agreement, ERTA; Accord Européen sur les Transports Routiers, AETR) lays down rules on the driving times and rest periods for professional drivers. This multilateral agreement has been elaborated under the auspices of the Economic Commission for Europe of the United Nations (UNECE).

It inspired similar rules within the European Union, namely Regulation (EC) 561/2006 on the driving time and rest periods and Regulation (EEC) 3821/85 on the tachograph which is the recording equipment used to check compliance with the rules on driving time and rest periods. The 27 EU Member States and 24 European and Central Asian countries are currently Contracting Parties to this agreement.

In 2006 the EU introduced the digital tachograph as its obligatory equipment for monitoring driving times and rest periods, replacing the analogue tachograph, which has been in use since 1985. The AETR Contracting Parties agreed subsequently to introduce the same digital tachograph in their vehicles used international transport as from 2011.

On 19 July 2011, the Commission made a proposal to modify Regulation (EEC) 3821/85 on the tachograph. The European Parliament voted its opinion on 3 July 2012. In parallel, the Council reached a general approach on 27 June in view of a position of the Council in first reading. The amended Regulation will introduce technological improvements which will have important consequences on the specifications of the digital tachograph. In this context, the Council inserted a recital according to which "the Commission will take the appropriate steps in UNECE to ensure the necessary coherence between Regulation 3821/85 and the AETR agreement".

EUR-Lex: COM(2012)589: Follow the progress of this document through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2012:589:FIN

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