CRUCIAL EUROPE-WIDE REVISIONS OF THE RULES AND REGULATIONS GOVERNING THE HEAVY TRANSPORT SECTOR – LONG CALLED FOR BY ESTA – MOVED A STEP CLOSER ON MONDAY WHEN THE NEWLY INSTALLED EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT’S IMPORTANT TRANSPORT AND TOURISM (TRAN) COMMITTEE VOTED TO BACK THEM.
The measures include the Europe-wide adoption of the standard SERT documentation for abnormal load vehicle registration – a move that ESTA has supported for many years.
SERT, the Special European Registration for Trucks and Trailers, is intended to reduce the paperwork and bureaucracy faced by the industry.
Other measures include:
They are all contained in the revisions to the EU’s Weights and Dimensions Directive (96/53) that are currently under discussion.
Monday’s meeting took place at unexpectedly short notice and the vote saw 30 of the TRAN Committee’s 46 members back the measures which now move to the next stage – negotiations with the Council – before possible implementation.
The directive’s revisions had been previously agreed by the TRAN Committee and the Parliament back in March, but progress was stalled by the European elections in June and the post-election members of the new TRAN Committee had to decide whether to continue as before or to start the revision process again.
Monday’s vote means the process can now continue uninterrupted and followed an eleventh-hour call by ESTA for its members to lobby their national representatives for support.
The Weights and Dimensions Directive sets maximum authorised dimensions of heavy-duty vehicles (HDVs) used in national and international commercial transport and the maximum authorised weights of HDVs used in international commercial transport.
This ensures fair competition as member states cannot restrict the circulation of vehicles, which comply with these limits from performing international transport operations within their territories.
ESTA Director Ton Klijn said: “This is very good news indeed and the revised directive includes measures that ESTA has been requesting for many years. There is still a lot of work to do to ensure that the measures are not diluted or even rejected during the final rounds of discussions. But it is clear that an increasing number of our politicians and regulators are beginning to appreciate the importance of our members work to Europe’s economy as a whole and are listening to our requests.”
