Deadlock over lorry rules sparks rethink

Date: 23/03/2000

By Renée Cordes

THE European Commission has gone back to the drawing board to try to find a formula to end the deadlock over proposed new rules to govern truckers' working hours and weekend driving bans.

Officials say Transport Commissioner Loyola de Palacio is reviewing the plans originally drawn up by her predecessor Neil Kinnock. "We are looking for good ideas to see where we can find a compromise," said one. "We have to find a way to break through this stalemate situation. Our target is to have something ready by the Transport Council in June."

The Portuguese presidency has abandoned attempts to broker deals on the two dossiers quickly, leaving both issues off the agenda for next Tuesday's (28 March) meeting of EU transport ministers. In a further sign that swift progress is unlikely, France, which takes over the Union presidency in July, has already vowed to make getting agreement on the measures a priority during its term at the helm.

Industry insiders predict that the Commission will give into French demands that it be allowed to keep tough national weekend driving restrictions in place in return for being more flexible on working time.

The battle over truckers' hours began two years ago when the Commission unveiled its proposals for bringing a range of 'excluded' sectors within the scope of the Union's 1993 working time rules, acknowledging that these would have to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis because they involved professions which did not work normal office hours.

Governments have since reached a provisional deal on junior doctors' and oil-rig workers' hours, although they have been forced into conciliation talks with the European Parliament after MEPs demanded tougher rules. But it was clear from the start that getting agreement on a regime for the road-haulage sector would pose the most difficult challenge.

The main stumbling block is the question of whether self-employed drivers should be covered by the new rules. Countries with a large number of 'owner-drivers' such as the UK and Finland have repeatedly insisted that hundreds of small road-haulage firms could be driven out of business if they were forced to comply with the directive and should therefore be exempt from the legislation. But other member states such as France, which has a strongly-unionised road transport sector mainly staffed by employed drivers, insist that the rules must apply to everyone.

Maarten Labberton, head of the International Road Transport Union's office in Brussels, said that even if the Commission was able to break the impasse over self-employed drivers, several other obstacles would still stand in the way of a wider accord.

"Even if the Commission can table a compromise on the owner-driver issue, it still faces a lot of opposition from member states who refuse to be flexible on other areas such as weekend bans," he said.

The European Commission has gone back to the drawing board to try to find a formula to end the deadlock over proposed new rules to govern truckers' working hours and weekend driving bans.