The European Parliament adopted by resolution on the handling of heavy goods vehicles at border crossing points based on Petition 0146/2023.
As a reminder, hundreds of goods vehicles are held up every day at the EU’s internal borders, including the borders between Schengen and non-Schengen EU Member States, where they face extremely long wait times and delays due to processing and checks. The current European legal framework does not specifically address or regulate the maximum time taken to process goods at borders. Bulgaria and Romania are still waiting for a Council decision on the date for the removal of checks at internal land borders. The length of queues of goods vehicles on the EU’s external borders with Western Balkans countries is particularly worrisome.
Moreover, delays to goods vehicles at borders cause losses of hundreds of millions of euros for European businesses, particularly in the logistics, tourism and hospitality sectors.
Against this background, the resolution called for Parliament, the Council and the Commission to focus on specific measures to ensure smooth and efficient border crossings for freight transport when developing key EU policies such as the trans-European transport network. It also called on the Commission to propose immediate and binding legislative measures to create an EU-wide standard of an average of one minute for processing heavy goods vehicles at intra-EU border crossing points so as to guarantee fluidity at internal Schengen and non-Schengen borders, allowing goods and services to move quickly and efficiently.
Parliament urged the Belgian Presidency and all Members of the Council to adopt as quickly as possible, and by no later than mid-2024, a decision on the full application of the Schengen acquis in Romania and Bulgaria.
The resolution called on the Commission and the Member States for EU legislation to allow truck drivers to use smaller border crossings when main arteries are closed for road maintenance in order to avoid drivers depending on arbitrary actions by individual countries, as this is a matter of general EU interest.
Parliament called on the Commission, in cooperation with the Member States and relevant stakeholders, to put forward concrete measures to address the shortage of professional drivers in the EU by stimulating interest among young people by financing specific (re)training and qualifications and fostering partnerships between vocational schools and transport companies, including with specific EU budget support.
Lastly, Member States are called on to further step up their efforts to reinforce cross-border cooperation on theft from goods vehicles.