Skip to main content

EU member states call for action on low paid truck drivers

Transport ministers from eight EU countries and Norway met in Paris have called for the introduction of fairer social rules to govern road transport before the sector is opened up to greater liberalisation, according to EurActiv France. France, Germany, Italy, Denmark, Austria, Luxembourg, Belgium, Sweden and Norway met this week to adopt a joint declaration calling for the creation of a common market for transport, in order to safeguard workers’ rights, in particular Eastern Europe drivers who deliver g
February 3, 2017 Read time: 2 mins
Transport ministers from eight EU countries and Norway met in Paris have called for the introduction of fairer social rules to govern road transport before the sector is opened up to greater liberalisation, according to EurActiv France.

France, Germany, Italy, Denmark, Austria, Luxembourg, Belgium, Sweden and Norway met this week to adopt a joint declaration calling for the creation of a common market for transport, in order to safeguard workers’ rights, in particular Eastern Europe drivers who deliver goods seemingly non-stop to all four corners of the continent and with terrible working conditions .

“Professional drivers have become road slaves,” Alain Vidalies, the French transport minister, told the press after Tuesday’s meeting.

“These countries came together in Paris today and decided to act together to end unfair competition and the degradation of the living standards of professional drivers in the road transport sector,” he added.

The question of unfair competition and social dumping in the goods transport sector is an incendiary issue between the EU’s eastern member states, which are the biggest suppliers of low-cost drivers, and their western partners. Unfair competition from the East is gradually forcing western European transport companies out of business.

Related Content

  • December 16, 2013
    Study finds big differences in toll collection cases
    Examination of Norway’s tolling companies finds much to praise, and some criticisms too, as Torill Eidsheim told delegates at the ASECAP conference. The cost of collecting tolls has a substantial effect on the profitability, or otherwise, of tolling companies and is within the company’s control to a far greater degree than, for instance, traffic volumes. And while it is easy to assume that all tolling companies incur similar collection costs, that is not always the case according to Torill Eidsheim, pres
  • October 9, 2014
    EU urged to green-light revised cross-border enforcement proposal
    Road safety campaigners and European traffic police have welcomed the agreement by EU transport ministers to back a change to rules on cross-border enforcement of traffic offences such as speeding. This comes on the heels of an Institute of Advanced Motorists report that 23,295 overseas drivers have escaped UK speeding penalties since January 2014. The European Commission published a revised cross-border enforcement law in July in response to a European Court of Justice ruling in May that said the exi
  • February 4, 2014
    EU funding kick-starts EETS studies
    The regional European Electronic Toll Services (EETS) initiative is about to be kick-started by over US$3 million of co-financing from the European Union TEN-T Program. A a series of studies aimed at deploying EETS on a cross-border regional scale, selected for funding under the 2012 TEN-T multi-annual programme, specifically cover the electronically tolled primary road network of seven member states: Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Poland and Spain, and Switzerland, which receives no EU suppor
  • March 12, 2013
    Aberdeen and Zagreb win EU sustainable mobility awards
    The European Commission has announced the winners of the 2012 Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMP) Award and the European Mobility Week (EMW) Award. Aberdeen and Zagreb were presented with their awards by European Commissioners Siim Kallas and Janez Potočnik at a joint award ceremony in Brussels, Belgium on 6 March. Aberdeen took the top honour in the Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans Award ahead of two other finalists, Ljutomer, Slovenia and Toulouse, France. Aberdeen is a city of around 220,000 inhabita