Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, there is no doubt that the liberalisation of road transport has brought us in Europe greater choice and better prices. Competition has also correspondingly become more intense, which has necessarily also led to the tendency for safety and work conditions to lose out in many businesses. The directive now before us on the training of professional drivers for the carriage of goods or passengers by road is intended to be, in essence, a protective measure and to improve the situation of these drivers. Not only technological developments but also more stringent environmental and safety requirements seem to us to make a sufficient case for, on the one hand, improving their training and, on the other, needing to add to this through continuous training on a regular basis. In the many discussions we have had with the industry, we have also, however, established that shortages in the labour force must not result in this directive having a restrictive effect. A reason why I also wish to thank all the groups, who played a very constructive part in this dialogue, is that the Committee accordingly attempted to introduce proposals for amendments which were not intended to completely change the Directive, but to make it a bit more flexible. For one thing, we created a sort of bridge to the driving licence, being aware that, in many Member States, training leading to the award of a driving licence already imposes certain conditions equivalent to the training requirements we are proposing. So it seems important to us that the training should be gone through without being duplicated, once for the driving licence and again in professional training. The same philosophy applied to the training objectives. Our concern was not to lay down every detail, but only the training objectives in general terms and thus to leave them in the Annex, because this makes possible the flexible use of these training objectives and leaves open the possibility of adapting them in the light of future developments. Training at present varies from one country to another, and we have accordingly laid it down that countries can revise the details in consultation with the Commission. The objective is that training should be equal. This Directive is not intended to alter any training already provided by a country. Continuous training appears to us to be an important issue as regards further development, and we hope that, here too, a bridge to the driving licence may be created, because we see continuous training for the driving licence as also constituting a significant element at a later stage. We have also opted for flexibility in the form of seven hours' continuous training, in other words, one day, rather than for larger units, in order not to impose a burden on businesses. We have not, I think, gone over the top with one day, representing 0.05% of an employee's labour input. I personally also insist firmly that there should be flexibility about the training centres. If we are to speak in terms of mobility in Europe these days, the training centre is not necessarily to be tied to the business or to where the driver lives. If this certificate is to be valid right across Europe, it should also be possible to train anywhere in Europe. In this, we are also aware of the fact that this may well be an interesting and important Directive, but that, unfortunately, not all the problems have yet been solved. Mr van Dam has just mentioned the bilateral authorisations, which are still valid in Europe, leaving room for misuse in this area. We know too that certain businesses continue to avail themselves of the possibility – something I rather regret about Mr van Dam's report – that we will limit this standard driver's certificate to the countries that are not members of the EU. For there are excesses in these areas within the Fifteen Member States too. I do not want to name the firms involved, but some names in this field are well known to us. I would like to conclude by saying that all this could form an integrated whole if, tomorrow, we were to gain a standard driver's certificate, a directive on journey times and rest periods, a card to confirm these and then also this Directive on driving licences and the training needed today. This could be readily monitored; hence our appeal for improved monitoring, not only to the Commission, but especially also to the Member States. Any Directive, no matter how good it is, can only be of value if it is regularly monitored – monitored, moreover, to an equal degree in each and every Member State.

Political group: PPE-DE