Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-02-22-Speech-2-216"
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"en.20050222.14.2-216"2
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"Madam President, I am pleased that you are chairing this sitting, because I know that you are a very careful and safe driver and that you are greatly interested in the whole question of road safety.
It is a regrettable fact that skulduggery, cheating and forgery take place in the EU in connection with driving licences. These activities are made easier by the 110 different licence models that are currently in use in the European Union, and let us be honest: we need look no further for an example than Germany, where many drivers still have the collector’s item we call the grey rag; some of these have even paid the occasional visit to a washing machine. The limp grey card with its youthful photograph may be a cherished memento in the eyes of its owner, but it is certainly an inadequate form of identification for roadside checks.
As you know, I started my working life as a police officer; what is a poor policeman in Palermo, Bordeaux or Madrid to do when he stops a vehicle and is shown a tatty piece of scrap paper that is no longer of any use to anyone? If we expect young people to be issued with a plastic-card driving licence today, it is absolutely reasonable to expect other people to exchange their droopy old paper documents within the lengthy transition period that the rapporteur’s very sound proposal prescribes.
Let me say to Mr Jarzembowski that to call this compulsory exchange
in German is a very emotive thing to do, for the term is associated with the dictatorial regime in the German Democratic Republic, which compelled visitors entering the country to exchange deutschmarks for East German currency. We have to mind our terminology when we discuss European rules; a little care will keep the communication process on an objective level.
As I said, the rapporteur has presented a very good proposal, and for that I thank him.
My final point has already been mentioned. We must put an end once and for all to driving-licence tourism. If a person has his or her licence withdrawn in Germany today and does not pass the subsequent medical and psychological test, known colloquially in Germany as the idiots’ test, that person can go to the Czech Republic or elsewhere and obtain a new driving licence at little cost by pulling a residence trick. This situation cannot go on indefinitely here in Europe. We want to put an end to it with this directive, which is why I hope that, in tomorrow’s vote, Mr Grosch will be given a large majority, including the backing of the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats."@en1
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"Zwangsumtausch"1
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