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

  • August 6, 2013
    Monitoring, detection and control systems inside tunnels can do much to improve traveller safety
    ITS technology can do a great deal to improve tunnel safety, as Colin Sowman discovers. It was back in April 2004 that the European Parliament adopted the EU Directive which lays down the Minimum Safety Requirements for Tunnels in the Trans-European Road Network (2004/54/EC). This was the first unitary legislation setting minimum safety standards for European road tunnels and was designed to harmonise the management of tunnel safety at a national level. Operators of existing tunnels have until 30 April 201
  • November 9, 2017
    Mobinet counters weighty cross border concerns
    A Mobinet pilot is combining onboard weighing with V2X comms to streamline vehicle weight enforcement. David Crawford reports. Pan-European, cross-border weigh-in-motion (WIM) for trucks is now a practical possibility, following successful Scandinavian trials within the EU-co-funded Mobinet (Internet of Mobility) programme. New technology is using strain sensors, located on load-bearing components and routinely installed in truck fleet management systems.
  • October 9, 2015
    EU transport committee welcomes cycling declaration
    Following the first informal meeting of transport ministers focused exclusively on cycling on the organised by the Luxembourg Presidency of the Council of the EU, Chair of the EP transport committee Michael Cramer (Greens/EFA, DE) welcomed the signing of the declaration on cycling, saying: "This week brings along a historic decision for a sustainable transport policy. "The Council meeting of transport ministers has been kicked-off with a meeting on cycling, on 7 October. “During this session the represen
  • April 1, 2019
    C-ITS in the EU: ‘A little tribal’
    As the C-ITS Delegated Act begins its journey through the European policy maze, Adam Hill looks at who is expecting what from this proposed framework for connected vehicles – and why some people are insisting that the lawmakers are already getting things wrong here are furrowed brows in Brussels and Strasbourg as European Union legislators begin to consider the rules which will underpin future services such as connected vehicles. The idea is to create a regulatory framework to harmonise cooperative ITS