site.btaBulgarian EU Council Presidency Will Draft Proposal on Key Points of Mobility Package which Displease Bulgarian Road Hauliers

Sofia, May 14 (BTA) - Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov, EU Mobility and Transport Commissioner Violeta Bulc and representatives of Bulgaria's road haulage industry conferred for more than three hours here on Monday. The participants concurred that the Bulgarian EU Council Presidency will draft a proposal on the key points of the EU Mobility Package which displease the Bulgarian road transport companies, and this proposal will be submitted to the Permanent Representatives Committee (Coreper).

"We hope that we will be able to reach common understanding during the Bulgarian Presidency on the direction which this package will take," Bulc told reporters.

Four key points of the Mobility Package were discussed at Monday's meeting, the Commissioner specified. Regarding the requirement for truckers to return home once every three weeks for their mandatory rest, the message of the Commission is that the drivers should be able to choose where to spend the rest period: at home or where they are located. On the second moot point: the ban on spending the rest in the sleeper cab of the truck, the Commission recommends that insurer-approved guarded parking facilities be set up, where drivers could leave their vehicles and be allowed to rest in the sleeper cabs in such parking areas. It is specifically recommended that cabotage (transporting goods between two places in the same Member State by a transport operator from another Member State) should be subject to posting rules from its very first moment, while short-term international transport operations and transit should be exempt from these rules. The fourth issue concerns third-country carriers, and the recommendation on it is crystal clear: all rules applying to the operators in the EU single market will also apply to third-country operators. Besides this, Member States will be able to impose additional restrictions on third-country carriers in the form of quotas and permits.

Bulc noted the crucial importance of the transport sector development resting on a clear, feasible and fair basis, considering that it is forecast to grow 27 per cent by 2030 and over 60 per cent by 2050. The Commissioner stressed that the negotiations had been hard but, ultimately, a market measures package will be proposed to foster the future development of the single market and make carriers' business socially acceptable, fair and transparent, complying with easily enforceable rules.

In her opinion, the present rules do not serve the European market well. "They create chaos, and failing to reach agreement on this package and keeping the existing rules is not a good solution for the sector," the Commissioner argued.

Bulgarian Transport, Information Technology and Communications Minister Ivaylo Moskovski noted that all moot points had been addressed at Monday's meeting. "This sector generates 17 per cent of Bulgaria's GDP, which is why we are bound to react whenever EU legislation gives carriers a cause for concern," he added. Moskovski said that the talks with the working teams of Commissioner Bulc will continue even this evening until all details on the package are sorted out.

"For her part, Commissioner Bulc will meet with her colleagues of the rest of the EU Member States and especially those with a dissenting opinion. Let's hope that a balanced solution suiting all parties will be achieved," Moskovski said.

"We are not giving up the protests," said Iliyan Filipov of the road haulage industry. "This is the first time that there has been a dialogue on the transport package and our minimum requirements have been accepted, which is encouraging. Unfortunately, we realize that almost nothing depends on Commissioner Bulc, she will try to persuade the other Member States, but the lobby there is rather powerful," he added, justifying the sector's concerns.

"We are indeed endangered with extinction, and we will become extinct if the Mobility Package is adopted in its present form," Filipov said.

The carriers said they will provide details about their protest plans at a transport forum in Sofia on Tuesday.

Under the EU Mobility Package, which has long been the subject of tough negotiations between Member States and which has yet to be laid before the European Parliament, heavy-duty truck drivers from Eastern Europe are to be paid the same per diem allowances as those from Western Europe and will be required to spend the mandatory 45-hour weekly rest at a hotel and go back home once every three weeks. The problem is that East European carriers cannot afford such costs: the per diem allowances which they pay truckers now are nearly half the amount in Western Europe.

The proponents of the package (France, Germany, Austria and Italy) argue that East European hauliers undercut the prices of truck transportation in the continent by offering lower-cost hauls by paying their drivers less. The opponents (Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic) insist that the changes would deprive their carriers of their competitive edge and would ruin their business.