Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-04-07-Speech-1-062"
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"en.20030407.5.1-062"2
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".
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I would firstly like to congratulate Mr Grosch on his excellent report, which demonstrates that we all share the same opinion on the training of professional drivers and the need to improve safety on our roads.
Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, I would appeal to you not to let these two amendments cause us to miss the opportunity to approve this legislation at second reading and therefore not to delay its adoption by this Parliament and the Council even further, as well as its subsequent transposition.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, your vote tomorrow will have a great influence on the legislative process. It will facilitate a speedy adoption of the directive and consequently an improvement in the conditions of millions of lorry and bus drivers who work in our Member States. I am counting on your support in order to achieve this.
I would like to say to the rapporteur that he is absolutely right, that the effectiveness of all these measures will be assessed according to the Member States’ capacity for control in their various areas of responsibility. To this end we are analysing the possibilities for further convergence of the types of control carried out in the different Member States with the rules and requirements that we have agreed at Community level.
The rapporteur is well aware that this is a complex task, but I would like to say to him that – as I have repeated on various occasions – I hope to present a proposal on this area to Parliament and the Council as soon as possible.
The adoption of this directive will be an important step forward and will contribute to the harmonisation of social conditions, a better quality of professional driver and better road transport standards in general.
The Commission believes that the Council’s Common Position, which to a large extent takes account of Parliament’s first reading, is a well-balanced attempt to achieve these objectives, and we should therefore try not to spoil this balance and try to adopt this directive at second reading.
Some of the amendments proposed improve on the Council’s Common Position and the Commission takes a positive view of them.
There are certain amendments, however, which the Commission cannot accept, such as No 3, No 4, No 8 and No 9.
Amendments No 3 and 4 must be rejected for two reasons: firstly, because they are not viable in practice. In fact, in 13 Member States there is currently no obligatory training and only around 5 to 10% of the drivers in question would be able to be trained, and it would therefore be impossible for these 13 countries to transpose the directive correctly in two years.
In certain countries, particularly those with a federal structure, the transposition of such a complex and new piece of Community legislation would be practically impossible for procedural reasons, and would only lead to infringement procedures for lack of implementation at a later date.
Furthermore, if these amendments are adopted, we could end up in a conciliation procedure with the Council, with the prospect of achieving transposition into national legislation just one year before, of which six months would be lost through conciliation and from which ultimately nothing would be gained.
Amendments Nos 8 and 9 were both proposed by the European Parliament at first reading as well. They were rejected by the Commission and the Council did not take them up in its Common Position either. Amendment No 8 intends to authorise an individual to obtain the initial qualification or periodic training in the Member State of their choice. This could allow drivers to avoid the most demanding rules. Amendment No 9 lays down control by the competent authorities of the setting of tests. This means that the tests can be carried out by authorities other than the competent authorities. The tests should be carried out by the competent authorities or by bodies which are under their direct control. Therefore, the control requested is not necessary."@en1
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