Mobility package: changes that will affect your business
We are currently witnessing great changes in the market for transportation services in Europe, as all member countries have already begun to implement and will continue to implement year after year, part by part, the overall mobility package, a set of EU directives and regulations that is just now entering every transportation company on the Old Continent through the front door.
Mobility package
The European Union has decided to regulate the provision of transportation services within its borders in a rational manner. The result of this work is the staggered mobility package. The Union decided to introduce the solutions discussed below after consultation with the advice of committees and, above all, after joint agreements within the member states.
What is changing with the mobility package on Europe’s roads? The daily and weekly working hours of professional drivers are being regulated. Taking into account safety and comfort, it has been decided to introduce mandatory driving breaks, when the driver can eat and sleep. Regulations on the electronic transmission of information will also change, which could affect the already operational information and information systems of shipping companies. Devices such as tachographs are already under tighter supervision. In addition, the reform of the road transport system in Europe also implies new guidelines for the rights and obligations of drivers and those who employ them. At the same time, the relevant instances of each member country are getting their hands on tools to help control the changes already made and announced for the near future in the forwarding traffic on the continent.
The concept of a “driver’s return location” is being introduced, where the driver is supposed to return from a route for a rest within a certain designated time frame. Of course, one of these places is the headquarters of the transport company. So, a provision is introduced according to which the driver must go from time to time and for a certain period of time to his home carrier, the company that employs him and runs the vehicle base. It seems that these regulations, which have already come into force, have a good rationale and are good regulations on a European scale.
2022 and the mobility package
But what will the mobility package bring us in the future – the 2022 mobility package? The most important things are yet to come.
Of course, the most important thing for Polish carriers remains the issue of drivers’ remuneration, which is now to be at the level of at least the full minimum wage in force in the country where transport services are provided. This is because it is known that German or French drivers, when they drive on the roads of their countries, earn more than domestic carriers in Poland. Posted workers will not be included in the system if their trip is only in transit or if they travel between their home country and the country where they unload or load goods – so-called bilateral transports.
The directive on the posting of workers in the industry will therefore apply to carriers offering cross-trade or cabotage transport. The road transport market in Europe is thus becoming standardized.
What awaits transport companies – the mobility package
Although the mobility package already seems to have good intentions and its provisions are very clear, everything will be decided in the practice of implementation of these provisions by member states and in court rulings, which are inclined to give a specific interpretation to EU regulations. In any case, carriers throughout Europe will have to adapt to these high-profile criteria of the open zone of movement of services, goods and human capital that is the European Union.
