Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-02-22-Speech-2-204"
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"en.20050222.14.2-204"2
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".
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, on 21 October 2003, the Commission adopted a proposal for a directive on driving licences, which you will debate in a moment.
There are currently more than 110Â different models of driving licences, some granting different rights, that are valid and in circulation in the Member States. In an open area in which freedom of movement of citizens is the rule, the consequences of this situation are clear. It is difficult to carry out checks on the licences, the public authorities have problems making sense of them, and citizens often have problems with their driving licences not being recognised. This situation is no longer acceptable.
The directive proposed by the Commission has three main objectives: protecting against fraud, freedom of movement and road safety. In terms of protection against fraud, the Commission proposes eliminating the paper model. From the date of application of the directive, the only Community model that can be used will be the plastic card. This will also help to reduce the number of models in circulation. The Member States will be able to insert a microchip into the driving licence that will, of course, only contain the information on the plastic card and will not be able to be used for other purposes. This will help to increase protection against fraud.
The Commission also proposes introducing a period of validity for the licence that is limited in time. This administrative period of validity, which will be ten years for car and motorcycle licences, will mean that each time it is renewed, the fraud protection elements can be updated and that a recent photo can appear on the document. This is the real way to avoid a similar situation to the one we have now.
The introduction of the limited period of validity will enable us to remove the final obstacle to free movement in this area. Citizens who settle in another Member State will therefore no longer be faced with validity periods that vary from one Member State to another. This is the element that, along with the harmonisation of the licence model, will enable us to remove obstacles to free movement.
The Commission’s proposal also aims to improve road safety. For this purpose, the Commission proposes introducing a new category of driving licence for mopeds. Moped drivers are the youngest people on the road driving motor vehicles. They are also particularly vulnerable, as all the statistics show, as they have a proportionally much higher involvement in accidents than other road users. The Commission also proposes regulating access to driving the most powerful motorbikes on a progressive basis, doing the same for HGVs and the most powerful coaches, harmonising the frequency of medical examinations for professional drivers and introducing minimum requirements for initial qualification and continuous training for driving licence examiners.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, here is an ambitious proposal for improving road safety, ensuring freedom of movement and combating driving licence fraud. It will have a clear impact on many citizens for whom a driving licence is a guarantee of mobility and freedom of movement and an identification document for everyday life."@en1
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