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Over the next couple of years some significant changes are coming for truck and bus operators and their drivers. Will they improve the work environment or not, who knows?
The following EU laws included in the historical Mobility Package 1 were published in the Official Journal of the EU on 31 July 2020:
· The Regulation on Access to the Market and Access to the Profession (Regulation (EU) 2020/1055 amending Regulations (EC) No 1071/2009, (EC) No 1072/2009 and (EU) No 1024/2012 with a view to adapting them to developments in the road transport sector),
· The Directive on the Posting of Drivers (Directive (EU) 2020/1057 on specific rules with respect to Directive 96/71/EC and Directive 2014/67/EU for posting drivers in the road transport sector), and
· The eFTI Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2020/1056 on electronic freight transport information).
Most of these pieces of legislation shall enter into force on the 20th day following that of their publication (i.e., 20 August 2020). However, their provisions shall apply as of various other dates, as mentioned therein. To sum up:
· With a few exceptions, the DRT Regulation shall apply as of 20 August 2020;
· The Regulation on Access to the Market and Access to the Profession shall apply from 21 February 2022;
· The Directive on the Posting of Drivers as of 2 February 2022;
· With a few exceptions, the eFTI Regulation shall apply from 21 August 2024.
For your ease of reference, please find attached a table comprising the start date of application of the most important new provisions of the DRT Regulation, the Regulation on Access to the Market and Access to the Profession and the Directive on the Posting of Drivers, and (ii) a Mobility Package enforcement timeline illustrating the same. The identification of the most important new provisions is preliminary and subject to improvement based on your contribution on what is the most relevant for you/your members’ business. To this end, may we invite you again to join the discussions on the enforcement of the Mobility Package 1 carried out under the IRU Commission for Social Affairs (CAS) and contact Oleg.Kamberski@iru.org if you have not already joined. This invitation is addressed both to CLTM and CTP-EU members because most of the provisions apply both to freight and passenger transport.
Regarding the eFTI Regulation, which applies only to freight, as several members raised questions regarding its concrete contribution to the digitalisation of freight, please find some clarification below.
The purpose of the eFTI Regulation is to require competent authorities to accept information made available electronically whenever economic operators are obliged to make information available as proof of compliance with requirements laid down in Union legal acts covered by this Regulation” (Recital 6). Hence, the eFTI Regulation does not extend to any documents required by authorities but is limited only to those documents/information required under specific EU law provisions expressly and exhaustively enumerated by the eFTI Regulation.
- The eFTI Regulation covers the documents/information required under the EU law provisions enumerated in its Article 2(1). Based on this Regulation, only documents/information required by authorities under those provisions will have to be accepted when made available electronically.
- Regarding the link between eCMR and eFTI, the eFTI Regulation does not oblige Member States to adopt eCMR. However, if data from the eCMR is to be used to prove compliance with the EU rules for the eFTI purpose, the eCMR provider will have to comply with the eFTI rules. To this end, eFTI makes reference to eCMR in its Preamble. Independently from eFTI, Member States who have not done so yet implicitly face an increased pressure to adopt eCMR because the enforcement of the Directive on the Posting of Drivers lists eCMR as an enforcement tool.
- eFTI could provide inspiration and model for further digitalisation of freight beyond its actual scope. The rational which triggered the EU to adopt the eFTI rules, set out in its Preamble, could be used as a model by analogy. For example, recitals 2 and 3 of the eFTI Regulation are a good plea for digitalisation and recognise that “the use of paper documents represents a significant administrative burden for logistics operators and an additional cost for logistics operators and related industries (such as trade and manufacturing), in particular for SMEs, and has a negative impact on the environment”.