Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee on the Proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the inland transport of dangerous goods COM(2006) 852 — 2006/0278 (COD)
Date: 2007-07-11
Institutions: European Economic and Social Committee
Subjects: approximation of laws, inland transport, transport of dangerous goods, transport safety

C 256/44

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

27.10.2007

Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee on the ‘Proposal for a directive of the
European Parliament and of the Council on the inland transport of dangerous goods’

COM(2006) 852 — 2006/0278 (COD)

(2007/C 256/09)

On 19 January 2007 the Council of the European Union decided to consult the European Economic and
Social Committee, under Articles 71 and 251 of the Treaty establishing the European Community, on the
abovementioned proposal.

The Section for Transport, Energy, Infrastructure and the Information Society, which was responsible for
preparing the Committee's work on the subject, adopted its opinion on 19 June 2007. The rapporteur was
Krzysztof Ostrowski.

At its 437th plenary session, held on 11 and 12 July 2007 (meeting of 11 July), the European Economic
and Social Committee adopted the following opinion by 136 votes with 4 abstentions.

1. The EESC's position

1.1
The Committee welcomes the Commission's proposal for
a directive on the inland transport of dangerous goods, whose
strategic aim is to harmonise EU legislation on the inland trans-
port of dangerous goods. It should lead to an improvement in
safety in the inland transport of dangerous goods.

1.2
The proposal revises four existing directives and four
Commission decisions on the transport of dangerous goods,
merging them into one legislative act, and also extends the
scope of the EU's provisions to include transport by inland
waterways (alongside road and rail transport).

1.3
The Committee shares the Commission's opinion that
one cannot conceive of ensuring the best possible safety condi-
tions for the inland transport of dangerous goods unless all
types of inland transport (road, rail and inland waterway) are
covered by common, EU wide legislation.

1.4
The Committee agrees with the Commission's view that
the harmonisation of the binding legislation on the inland trans-
port of dangerous goods by road and rail, which will not
require any fundamental changes to the current regulations, and
which will also extend the scope of EU legislation to cover
inland waterways, will greatly simplify both the legislation and
administrative procedures for both government authorities and
private business.

1.5
The incorporation of all land transport modes into one
legal act and the inclusion of references to international agree-
ments and treaties on the inland transport of dangerous goods
in the directive's appendices only (which would not be included
as part of the directive, as is currently the case) will mean a
significant reduction in the volume of the EU's acquis.

derogations outlined for the Member States, the Committee calls
on all Member States to cooperate as closely as possible with
the Commission on this issue, to ensure that the harmonisation
of legislation becomes a reality.

The Committee wishes to emphasise that, given the
1.7
detailed nature of the provisions on the technical conditions for
the transport of dangerous goods and indeed of the categories
of goods themselves outlined in the proposal,
it can only
comment on issues of a more general nature.

1.8
The Committee welcomes the information from the
Commission that the opinions of the Member States and stake-
holders, such as industry associations representing businesses
active in the transport of dangerous goods, had a significant
impact on the contents of the proposal, and that all efforts were
made to reach a common position during the consultation
process.

The Committee notes with satisfaction that the Commis-
1.9
sion will continue to be supported by a special regulatory
committee on the transport of dangerous goods, which will
help during comitology procedures.

1.10
The Committee also notes with satisfaction that the
participation of industry associations at the meetings of the
regulatory committee allowed them to put across their views
regularly during the proposal drafting process. Equally,
the
Committee notes that consultations were also held with EFTA
states and that the European Parliament was kept up to date
with all developments.

1.6
The Committee believes that the legal form proposed for
the new provisions, the directive, represents a good solution.
Considering, however, the wide scope of the exemptions and

1.11
The Committee values the fact that consultations were
also held with the Central Commission for Inland Shipping on
the Rhine, especially given that
the transport of dangerous
goods on this river accounts for some 80 % of the transport of
such goods in Europe.

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1.12
The Committee also notes the Commission's informa-
tion that external consultants conducted an evaluation of the
above area of policy in the years 2004-05: Evaluation of
the
EU policy on the transport of dangerous goods since 1994 and that
their evaluation confirmed the validity of the proposal as well as
the fact
the over-
whelming majority of respondents were in favour of the policy
proposed by the Commission.

that public consultations

revealed that

1.13
The Committee believes that, since the translation and
publication of the technical appendices is to be carried out at
Member State level,
the
Commission to financially support the translation process in the
Member States.

it would be highly desirable for

2.3
The regulation of the transport of dangerous goods is an
important issue not only due to the specific nature of the goods
themselves, but also because of
the large volume of goods
transport of dangerous goods in the EU
concerned. Total
already stands at 110 billion tonne-kilometres per annum,
which represents approximately 8 % of all goods transportation
in the EU. Of this figure, road transport accounts for 58 %, rail
transport 25 %, with inland waterways making up 17 %. A
growing trend is discernible, with the exception of rail trans-
port.

In Europe, the provisions of the international agreements
sector via the

2.4
were implemented in the inland transport
following three instruments:

1.14
Further to the above, the Commission is convinced that
it is right to back the proposal in question, which was drawn up
by highly qualified specialists
in the inland transport of
dangerous goods from a variety of Member States.

a) ADR = European Agreement concerning the international
carriage of dangerous goods by road (concluded in Geneva
on 30 September 1957, as amended);

The Committee would, nonetheless, wish to draw atten-
1.15
tion to a number of issues which, in its opinion, still need to be
reworked or clarified: there is no definition of the concept of
dangerous goods under
the Directive; Member States are
granted the right to enforce bans on the transport of dangerous
goods on their territory for non-safety reasons only; there is a
lack of any information in Appendices III.2 and III.3.

The Committee's comments on these issues were presented in
the section on Specific Comments.

2. Principal elements of the proposal

petrol,

products,

The inland transport of dangerous goods (chemicals,
2.1
cleaning
handheld weapon
explosives,
cartridges, aerosols, radioactive materials, pesticides etc) carries
with it a substantial risk of accidents occurring. This applies to
all modes of transport; road, rail and inland waterways. It poses
a danger to the life and health of not only those persons directly
involved in the transport of such goods, but also to many resi-
dents of both urban and rural areas.

the international

Action has already been taken in the past to ensure that
2.2
the transport of such goods takes place under the best possible
conditions. Today,
transport of dangerous
goods is regulated by a series of international treaties and agree-
ments, which are based on UN recommendations. In order to
ensure the safe transport of dangerous goods and the free and
multimodal flow of international transport services, the UN has
drawn up and revised a document entitled Recommendations on
the Transport of Dangerous Goods, Model Provisions.

b) RID = Regulations concerning international carriage of
(Appendix C to the COTIF
transport, concluded in

dangerous goods by rail
Convention on international rail
Vilnius on 3 June 1999, as amended);

c) AND = European Agreement concerning the international
carriage of dangerous goods by inland waterways (concluded
in Geneva on 26 May 2000, as amended).

2.5
EU legislation on the inland transport of dangerous
goods, however, covers only transport by road and rail. The
existing legislation already guarantees high levels of safety in
respect of these two modes of transport, along with the free
provision of transport services and the free movement of trans-
port modes across EU territory. The EU legislation in this area
includes the following four items:

a) Council Directive 94/55/EC of 21 November 1994 on the
approximation of the laws of the Member States with regard
to the transport of dangerous goods by road;

b) Council Directive 96/49/EC of 23 July 1996 on the approxi-
mation of the laws of the Member States with regard to the
transport of dangerous goods by rail;

c) Council Directive 96/35/EC of 3 June 1996 on the appoint-
ment and vocational qualification of safety advisers for the
rail and inland
transport of dangerous goods by road,
waterway;

d) Council Directive 2000/18/EC of the European Parliament
and of the Council of 17 April 2000 on minimum examina-
tion requirements for safety advisers for the transport of
dangerous goods by road, rail or inland waterway.

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2.6
However, there are no regulations governing the trans-
port of dangerous goods by inland waterway. Whilst it is true
that two systems of regulations are in place for regulating trans-
port on the Rhine and the Danube (ADN-R and ADN-D), they
have a regional scope only. What is more, there are also national
regulations which regulate domestic transport in the Member
States. The lack of any legislation in this field is, among other
things, due to the non-signing of
the ADN. The Commis-
sion's 1997 proposal for a directive on the approximation of
the laws of the Member States on the transport of dangerous
goods by vessels on inland waterways was not adopted and was
withdrawn in 2004.

the latest. Taking this into account,

2.7
However, the agreement on transport by inland waterway
is currently at the ratification stage and is expected to come into
the
effect by 2009 at
Committee agrees with the Commission's assertion that
it
makes sense to introduce transport by inland waterway into EU
legislation, if only for the sake of harmonisation. Equally, this
represents an opportunity to update and standardise the existing
legislation. In addition, one must not allow the development of
two separate legal systems: one for international transport, the
other for domestic transport. Yet another reason for revising the
legislation is that the existing EU legislation on the transport of
dangerous goods is already quite complex. The legislative acts
for certain modes of transport contain a number of inconsisten-
cies whilst other regulations are or will soon be obsolete. For
example,
two directives may currently be considered to be
redundant following the incorporation of their provisions into
ADR, RID and ADN. A technical problem also exists regarding
the current structure of the existing directives; according to the
treaties, full translations must be made of the extensive technical
appendices once every two years, whenever an international
agreement or treaty is amended. This has proven to be a highly
difficult and expensive process.

2.8
According to the information presented by the Commis-
sion, if nothing is done regarding this matter, then the above
problems will not only not disappear, but may actually get even
worse. The current complex provisions will, in all probability,
become yet more complicated as a result of the amendments
made to the international treaties and agreement; obsolete regu-
lations will be maintained, which will not only confuse users
but will also increase the risk of violation of the binding regula-
tions. Instead of becoming more user-friendly, EU regulations
could actually become completely inaccessible. With increasing
use of multimodal concepts, different rules for different trans-
port modes will exacerbate the daily problems encountered in
multimodal operations and increase costs unnecessarily.
In
inland waterway transport, different rules for international and
national operations will hamper the development of this mode,
which otherwise would be the preferable mode in many cases,
as is borne out by the statistical data available.

broadening the scope of EU regulations to include transport by
inland waterway as well.

or

revoke

inland waterway,

The new directive will

2.10
existing Directives
94/55/EC and 96/49/EC, as amended, on the transport of
dangerous goods, Directives 96/35/EC and 2000/18/EC on
safety advisers for the transport of dangerous goods by road,
rail
and Commission Decisions
2005/263/EC and 2005/180/EC, as amended, on national dero-
gations from Directives 94/55/EC and 96/49/EC. It is worth
adding at this point that the provisions of Directives 96/35/EC
and 2000/18/EC are currently included in the appendices to
Directives 94/55/EC and 96/49/EC, as a result of which the
former have become redundant with regard to transport by
road and by rail.

2.11
The proposal introduces the existing international trans-
port regulations into EU legislation and extends the scope of
application of international regulations to domestic transport.
The proposal will therefore lead to a substantial simplification in
EU legislation on the transport of dangerous goods even though
this will also involve an expansion in the scope of the legisla-
tion.

2.12
The aim of the proposal is to shift the responsibility for
the necessary translation and publication of the technical appen-
dices to the directives from the EU, i.e. from the Commission,
to the Member States. One of the main reasons for this is that
the translations done at EU level have not always been of the
highest quality, compelling Member States to do their own
translations or to correct them. These appendices are revised
every two years. Accordingly, the Commission should financially
translations completed at Member State level. The
support
Commission, however, believes that the savings made by the EU
in translation costs outweigh the importance of providing finan-
cial support to the Member States.

2.13
The proposal should create a system whereby references
to international treaties and agreements on the transport of
dangerous goods would be included in the appendices to the
directive only, and not in the directive itself, as is currently the
case. This is expected to lead to a reduction of as many as
2 000 pages in the size of the EU acquis on the subject.

This simplification in EU legislation should make it
2.14
easier to transpose this legislation into national law. The harmo-
nisation of regulations on the transport of dangerous goods
would simplify and make the work of the law enforcement
authorities, including the judiciary, more effective.

The simplification and harmonisation of the regulations
2.15
would make administrative procedures easier
those
involved in the transport of dangerous goods, from forwarder
to customer.

for all

2.9
This is the reason behind the proposal to adopt a new
directive, which will revise the existing four directives and four
Commission decisions on the transport of dangerous goods by
road and rail by merging them into a single legislative act (all
three transport modes will be covered by one legal act only) and

The harmonisation of

the regulations would also
2.16
simplify the documentation required for haulage and for vehi-
cles, the training of those involved as well as the work of the
safety advisers for the transport of dangerous goods.

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The proposal

2.17
the Commission's
programme for the gradual revision and simplification of the
EU acquis and of its legislative and work programme.

forms part of

3. Specific comments

The Committee wishes to draw attention to a number of issues,
about which it has reservations:

3.1
Firstly: in the proposal entitled Directive of the European
Parliament and of the Council on the inland transport of dangerous
goods the section on definitions provides detailed definitions of
individual words or terms (e.g. ADR, RID, AND, vehicle, wagon,
vessel) explaining their meaning for the purposes of the direc-
tive. However, no information is provided as to what we should
understand by the concept of ‘dangerous goods’. Doubtless, this
is no simple matter given the number of dangerous goods that
already exist and the advances in technology, which continually
add new items to the list of such goods. The Committee none-
theless believes that information should be provided on what
should be understood by the term ‘dangerous goods’
in the
context of this directive.

3.2
right

Secondly: the draft directive gives Member States the
introduce bans on the transport of
to regulate or

Brussels, 11 July 2007.

dangerous goods across their territory for reasons other than
transport safety only. Whilst the Committee understands the
reasons for which the Member States were granted the right to
it fails to
regulate or ban the transport of dangerous goods,
comprehend the reasoning behind according the right to act ‘for
reasons other than safety only’. The Committee believes that, in
the context of this proposal, whose aim is to increase the safety
of dangerous goods, the proposed wording means that Member
States would not be able to ban the transport of dangerous
goods on their territory for safety reasons, which would seem to
be rather illogical. Moreover, the Committee is unclear about
how it would be possible to ensure the coordination of such
bans applying to cross-border transport should the Member
States introduce different bans.

(Inland
Thirdly: Points III.2 and III.3 of Appendix III
3.3
transport) do not contain any information on any planned addi-
tional transitory provisions or additional national regulations.
Accordingly, the Committee asks for more information as to
whether it
is indeed the case that no such provisions are
planned or whether they are simply in the process of being
drawn up.

The President

of the European Economic and Social Committee

Dimitris DIMITRIADIS

Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee on the ‘Green Paper on Satellite
Navigation Applications’

COM(2006) 769 final

(2007/C 256/10)

On 8 December 2006 the European Commission decided to consult the European Economic and Social
Committee, under Article 262 of the Treaty establishing the European Community, on the Green Paper on
Satellite Navigation Applications.

The Section for Transport, Energy, Infrastructure and the Information Society, which was responsible for
preparing the Committee's work on the subject, adopted its opinion on 19 June 2007. The rapporteur was
Mr Buffetaut.

At its 437th plenary session, held on 11 and 12 July 2007 (meeting of 11 July), the European Economic
and Social Committee adopted the following opinion by 134 votes nem con with five abstentions.

1. Introduction

1.1
GALILEO is the flagship programme of European space
policy. The project's scope and strategic nature have led the
to work jointly with the
European Space Agency (ESA)
intergovernmental and
European Union. Thus, a culture of
Community cooperation should ensure the success of
this
venture. In the same spirit of cooperation, the project should be
implemented as a public-private partnership.

1.2
The first test satellite, precursor of future satellites that
will ultimately form a constellation of 30, was launched into
orbit towards the end of 2005. The development of this project
is therefore on course, but has not been without its difficulties
and delays.

1.3
GALILEO will be a global navigation satellite system,
which will provide a set of positioning, navigation and timing
services.