Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending the Regulation (EC) No 685/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 4 April 2001 in order to foresee for the distribution of authorizations among Member States received through the agreement between the European Community and Romania establishing certain conditions for the carriage of goods by road and the promotion of combined transport

(presented by the Commission)

EXPLANATORY MEMORANDUM

A. General Background

(1) On 7 December 1995, the Council authorised the Commission to negotiate one or more agreements on road transit with Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria with a view to resolving the problem of road goods transport relations between Greece and the other Member States, in particular through the mutual exchange of road transport authorizations.

(2) The decisions on the conclusion of the Agreements with Hungary and Bulgaria have been adopted by the Council on 19 March 2001. Proposals for Council Decisions concerning the signature and conclusion of the Agreement between the European Community and Romania establishing certain conditions for the carriage of goods by road and the promotion of Combined Transport have been submitted [1]. With the conclusion of the last of the three Agreements, the Community will have reached the original negotiating objective of facilitating road goods transport between Greece and the other Member States through the complete corridor comprising Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary.

[1] COM (2001) 45 final

(3) Under this Agreement with Romania the Community will receive 14.000 authorizations annually from Romania, to be distributed among Member States by a Regulation. The purpose of this proposal is to distribute these authorizations by amending the Regulation (EC) No 685/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 4 April 2001 concerning the distribution of authorisations among Member States received through the Agreements establishing certain conditions for the carriage of goods by road and the promotion of combined transport between the European Community and the Republic of Bulgaria and between the European Community and the Republic of Hungary [2].

[2] OJ L 108, 18.4.2001, p.1

(4) Under these Agreements with Bulgaria and Hungary the Community receives respectively 13.000 authorizations and 12.500 authorizations annually.

B. Choice of distribution methodology

(5) Statistical data relating to this complete corridor comprising Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary had been used by the Commission for the distribution of the authorizations received under the already concluded Agreements with Bulgaria and Hungary. It is appropriate that the same statistical basis (see Table 1) is used for the distribution of those authorizations received from Romania, as these statistics already reflect the number of transits carried out by goods vehicles registered in the different Member State through this complete corridor, i.e. including Romania.

(6) Table 1 reflects the number of transits through Hungary (using the complete corridor en route from Greece) by vehicles registered in Member States in the 1st three quarters of 1998:

Table 1

>TABLE POSITION>

(7) From the above table, it can be seen that, among vehicles registered in a Member State, almost 99% of the journeys that start in Greece and transit Hungary are performed by vehicles registered in Greece; further for 4 Member States, no such journeys were recorded at all. In order to foster the growth of transport operations performed by vehicles registered in other Member States it had been decided that:

- each Member State be given 100 authorizations on a "flat-rate" basis (just under 1% of the total authorizations available), and

- the remaining authorizations be distributed among Member States pro rata to the number of transit journeys indicated in Table 1 above.

(8) The number of authorizations to be given annually to each Member State according to the rule described in 6 is contained in the following Table 2 (Number of authorizations relating to Bulgaria and Hungary have been reproduced from Regulation (EC) N° 685/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council):

Table 2

>TABLE POSITION>

(9) The total number of authorizations to be given annually to each Member State is thus:

Table 3

>TABLE POSITION>

2001/0138 (COD)

Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending the Regulation (EC) No 685/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 4 April 2001 in order to foresee for the distribution of authorizations among Member States received through the agreement between the European Community and Romania 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 from the Commission [3],

[3] OJ C , , p. .

Having regard to the opinion of the Economic and Social Committee [4],

[4] OJ C , , p. .

Having regard to the opinion of the Committee of the Regions [5],

[5] OJ C , , p. .

Acting in accordance with the procedure laid down in Article 251 of the Treaty [6],

[6] OJ C , , p. .

Whereas:

(1) By Council Decision ....... [7] the European Community has concluded an Agreement with Romania establishing certain conditions for the carriage of goods by road and the promotion of Combined Transport.

[7] OJ C ...

(2) This Agreement foresees that the Community will receive road transit authorizations from Romania, as is the case under the almost identical agreements that have already been concluded with Bulgaria and Hungary.

(3) It is necessary for reasons of coherency that the rules governing the distribution, management and allocation of these authorizations are identical to those that have been established for the distribution of the authorizations received through the agreements with Bulgaria and Hungary.

(4) Regulation (EC) No 685/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council [8] should be amended accordingly.

[8] Regulation (EC) No 685/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 4 April 2001 concerning the distribution of authorisations among Member States received through the Agreements establishing certain conditions for the carriage of goods by road and the promotion of combined transport between the European Community and the Republic of Bulgaria and between the European Community and the Republic of Hungary (OJ L 108, 18.4.2001, p.1).

(5) It is necessary for this regulation to enter into force as a matter of urgency,

HAVE ADOPTED THIS REGULATION:

Article 1

Regulation (EC) No 685/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council is hereby amended as follows:

1. Article 1 shall be replaced by the following:

"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, between the European Community and the Republic of Hungary and between the European Community and Romania establishing certain conditions for the carriage of goods by road and the promotion of Combined Transport (hereinafter referred to as "the Agreements")."

2. The Annex shall be replaced by the following:

>TABLE POSITION>

Article 2

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