Amended proposal for a REGULATION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL concerning the distribution of authorizations among Member States received through the Agreements between the European Community and the Republic of Bulgaria and between the European Community and the Republic of Hungary establishing certain conditions for the carriage of goods by road and the promotion of Combined Transport

(presented by the Commission pursuant to Article 250 (2) of the EC Treaty)

EXPLANATORY MEMORANDUM

A. On 10 December 1999, the Commission submitted to the Council a proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning the distribution of authorizations among Member States received through the Agreements between the European Community and the Republic of Bulgaria and between the European Community and the Republic of Hungary establishing certain conditions for the carriage of goods by road and the promotion of Combined Transport (COM (1999) 667 final). On 27 April 2000, the proposal was endorsed by the Economic and Social Committee.

On 25 October 2000, the European Parliament delivered its opinion on the proposal at the first reading.

The Commission has accepted all amendments (1), for the following reasons :

Amendment 1 because the change in date at which new permits are distributed will have no negative effect on the well-functioning of the Regulation and may, indeed, improve its practical operation.

B. The Commission therefore modifies its proposal as follows :

Amendment 1 establishes a new deadline by which permits are to be distributed.

The modifications to the initial proposal from the Commission have been indicated as follows : where parts of the initial text were deleted, the 'strike through' tool was used; new and/or modified parts of the text were indicated using the 'bold' and 'underline' tools.

1999/0264 (COD)

Amended proposal for a REGULATION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL concerning the distribution of authorizations among Member States received through the Agreements between the European Community and the Republic of Bulgaria and between the European Community and the Republic of Hungary establishing certain conditions for the carriage of goods by road and the promotion of Combined Transport

THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION,

Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Community, and in particular Article 71 thereof,

Having regard to the proposal of the Commission [1],

[1] OJ C ...

Having regard to the opinion of the Economic and Social Committee [2],

[2] OJ C ...

Having regard to the opinion of the Committee of the Regions [3],

[3] OJ C ...

Acting in accordance with the procedure laid down in Article 251 of the Treaty [4],

[4] OJ C ...

Whereas:

(1) By Council Decision ....... [5] the European Community has concluded Agreements with the Republic of Bulgaria and the Republic of Hungary establishing certain conditions for the carriage of goods by road and the promotion of Combined Transport.

[5] OJ C ...

(2) These Agreements foresee that the Community will receive road transit authorizations from Bulgaria and Hungary respectively.

(3) It is necessary to establish rules governing the distribution and management of the authorizations which are made available to the Community.

(4) For practical and management reasons, those authorizations should be made available to the Member States by the Commission.

(5) To that end, an allocation method should be established; whereas, thereafter, the Member States should share out the amounts allocated to them among undertakings in accordance with objective criteria.

(6) In order to ensure the optimal use of authorizations, all unallocated authorizations should be returned to the Commission for redistribution.

(7) The allocation of authorizations should be based on criteria that take full account of existing land transport flows between Greece and the other Member States,

HAVE ADOPTED THIS REGULATION:

Article 1

This Regulation lays down the rules for the distribution between the Member States of authorizations available to the Community by virtue of Article 6.2 of the Agreements between the European Community and the Republic of Bulgaria and between the European Community and the Republic of Hungary establishing certain conditions for the carriage of goods by road and the promotion of Combined Transport (hereinafter referred to as "the Agreements").

Article 2

1. The Commission shall allocate authorizations in accordance with paragraphs 2 to 4.

2. The authorizations shall be allocated between Member States in accordance with the Annex. In the light of experience, especially the evolution of traffic flows, the Commission will, where appropriate and at the earliest 3 years after the entry into force of this Regulation, make a proposal to the Council to decide on a modification of the allocation of the authorizations between Member States.

3. The authorizations for each year shall be allocated before 15 October of the preceding year.

4. The number of authorizations allocated for the first year of implementation of either of the Agreements shall be adjusted pro rata if the Agreement has entered into force after 1 January of that year.

Article 3

Member States shall distribute authorizations amongst undertakings established in their territory according to objective and non-discriminatory criteria.

Article 4

Before 15 September of each year, the competent authorities of the Member States shall return to the Commission those authorizations which, on the basis of available data and estimates, are likely not to be used before the end of that year. The Commission shall allocate these returned authorizations taking account of the distribution key in the Annex and the request of Member States for additional authorizations.

Article 5

This Regulation shall enter into force on the day following of its publication in the Official Journal of the European Communities.

This Regulation shall be binding in its entirety and directly applicable in all Member States.

Done at Brussels,

For the European Parliament For the Council

The President The President

ANNEX

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