The European Union is exploring the possibility of a pan-European register of licensed truck operators in a bid to crack down on cowboy firms. The Freight Transport Association has been particularly vocal lately in calling for cross-border data sharing to cut down on the number of law-breaking foreign firms coming into the UK. The move by Brussels is part of a European Commission (EC) consultation into haulage regulation as part of a wider review designed to improve EU laws.
One possible
solution supported by "almost all" of the 67 respondents, which included trade associations, operators, governments and insurance federations, is the creation of an "EU-wide register of licensed operators or a database of EU licences". The EC says: "This will certainly be a topic to explore." Elsewhere in the consultation, hauliers are pressing for the maintenance of separate EU legislation for its sector, rather than general regulations also covering passenger transport.
In a summary of the responses, Brussels says: "It emerges clearly that goods and passenger transport by road should remain regulated in separate sets of rules." It agrees there are not "sufficient commonalities" to treat them as one industry. Respondents also said that targets for operators' performance and training should not be raised, but that the industry's efficiency should be raised "by better enforcement" of existing rules.
Next spring the EC will propose reforms to the EU's Directive 96/26/EC
governing:
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