Karima DELLI (Greens/EFA, FR), Chair of the TRAN Committee, speaks about the outcome of the trilogue on the Mobility Package, in the European Parliament in Strasbourg.

statement

Strasbourg

DELLI, Karima (Greens/EFA, FR)

mobility package (T)

Outcome of the trilogue on the Mobility Package: statement by Karima DELLI (Greens/EFA, FR), Chair of the TRAN Committee

SOUNDBITE (French), Karima DELLI (Greens/EFA, FR), The Mobility Package is certainly not perfect but it still has some advancements. From now, on the drivers will no longer be able to rest weekly in his truck in a parking, from now on employers will have to pay them adequate accommodation. Second good news is the end letter-box companies, finally: we waited for it for a long time.The supervision of the drivers will not be valid only for trucks, but also for light vehicles. From now on the driver will be able to go home once a month, within the framework of the  international market it will happen every four weeks.  

SOUNDBITE (French), Karima DELLI (Greens/EFA, FR), But the big news is also about technology: in the future all drivers including trucks and light vehicles will be equipped with what is called a smart tachograph to precisely control all operations. This is an advance: nonetheless there are still things that we lost, especially concerning the issue of the spare parts or the highways not regulated as the general directive. This agreement does not go far enough unfortunately, but it is only partially postponed.

SOUNDBITE (French), Karima DELLI (Greens/EFA, FR), The Mobility Package showed a lot of tension with two visions. On one hand, the States and sometimes the MEPs who were more for a very ambitious and demanding social harmonization to raise the social level, and the Member States which or MEPs who stayed for the liberalization of the rules. After having negotiated for three years, after the fact that the European Parliament has nevertheless arisen and we have voted on it six times, in the final stretch, even if it was a little hard due to the amendments, we found an agreement after four big technical meetings and in the night between December 11 and 12 we reached a general compromise.

SOUNDBITE (French), Karima DELLI (Greens/EFA, FR), The trucks are not obliged to return empty to the company that organized the transport, since they do import-export so the trucks generally return loaded to their country. This is the first thing, the second thing that is important is that we have put the rule of returning of the truck, because in the same country if you leave your truck you can have a turnover of employees which creates social dumping for some countries. And therefore it affects the internal market and we do not want to create more social dumping in the European Union. So the rule of returning of the truck is more than necessary. Regarding environmental rules, you know that the Transport Committee, which I chair, will go further: in the future we will fight for a truck gross-weight fee, which will put in place the 'polluter pays' principle, and so there will be an aspect on CO2 and in the future we will also have to activate the rail cargo, so the trucks will be travelling more on the railway than on the road.