Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-04-07-Speech-1-061"
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"en.20030407.5.1-061"2
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".
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, now that we have reached second reading stage, the Common Position, thanks to the good support from the Commission and its staff, but also to Members' willingness not to trip the discussion up with details, has, in my view, resulted in something very positive, and something that we can put to the vote tomorrow.
I see the directives on basic skills – as they are now termed – and training as being all of a piece with driving and rest times, driver attestation and now vocational training. I would in some ways call it a package of social measures in road transport, guaranteeing on the one hand proper liberalisation, whilst on the other hand also having the effect that these limitations on work are not at the expense of safety, work quality or training. Knowing as we do how tough competition is, particularly in road transport, we attached the highest importance to these regulatory measures.
Here in Parliament, we saw the Common Position as largely satisfactory. Whatever else it did, it did adopt two-thirds of the proposed amendments, which were dealt with at a rate and with a timetable quite astonishing for some sorts of work in this House. The overlap with the driving licence has been done away with, which means that those with proper training for their driving licence no longer need to have these basis skills certified. What was very important to us was that it was not the drivers' country of origin that was to be the decisive factor, but the place where they drive, the firm or business or its country of origin in the fifteen countries. People from third countries are also to acquire these basic skills.
The programmes are no longer so rigid. Even in in-service training, learning objectives have been laid down. The seven hours per annum rhythm is a good solution for both in-service training and from the businesses' point of view. It can also be assumed that this was harmonised with the new provisions on admission to the occupation, which means that, in this respect too, there are no weak points left.
We find it regrettable that there is no guarantee of mobility during training. We will shortly be discussing a project which will call on students to study the length and breadth of Europe, whilst drivers will not do so. Speaking as an inhabitant of a border area, I greatly regret this, but I can understand that there might still be problems with controls in certain cases. In any case, I am not abandoning hope, for, at the end of an evaluation that should be carried out over two years, the Commission, supported by the Council, may well come up with the idea of providing for a bit more mobility.
What we saw as worse than this was the fact that provision was made for a test without training, to be opted for not by the candidate, but by the country. We hope, however, that this will be re-examined in the course of the evaluation, for I believe that this amendment that we have tabled is an important one. After two years' implementation, there is not only to be an evaluation of to what extent this is applied in the Member States, but also of to what extent the objectives have been achieved, and, as this is to do only with examinations, this will of course be a very important aspect.
The change that we are proposing is the one that I have just mentioned. It is of course also about the training of drivers covering criminality in the broadest sense of the word, as they can very often be the victims of certain criminal acts. The training centres must be of high quality; my colleague has already incorporated this requirement into the recitals, and I believe it to be important that reference be made to this.
Turning to time limits, it is the desire of us all that this directive be transposed as quickly as possible, but, on the other hand, I believe that things must be looked at in a pragmatic light, as, in our experiment with the drivers' licence, the time limits may perhaps seem very long. I will ask, though, that the time limit should not be shortened whatever happens. Flexibility is important, and the bottom line is that, no matter how good these directives may be, and no matter how much we agree to their enactment, they will yield nothing if – as has become almost a recurrent theme in this Parliament – there are no subsequent controls and if they are not properly implemented. We therefore again urge the Commission, and, through them, the Council and the Member States that, if we want to create this liberalised European transport area, in which, however, this job can also be done under proper conditions, in which working conditions are right, and in which training will now also be right, these texts will remain nothing but fine words if the Member States are not willing to systematically implement them.
I will close with a reference to ECMT licences. I hope that we will soon be able to take certain steps at this level as well, where unfair competition continues, so that, in certain cases, all the good preparatory work that we have done can be taken into account."@en1
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