The European Parliament adopted a resolution, based on the draft by Helmuth MARKOV (GUE/NGL, DE) making several amendments to the Council’s common position, the principal ones being the following:
- the introduction of digital tachographs in lorries should be postponed. Parliament proposed deadlines of August 5, 2006 for all new vehicles and August 5, 2007 for all vehicles put into service for the first time, whereas the Council set a final deadline of August 5, 2005;
- Parliament has extended the daily rest period to twelve hours (compared with eleven hours in the Council’s common position);
- it has reviewed the manner in which the Council proposed to organise drivers’ breaks. Parliament proposes maintaining the current rules: mandatory 45 minute break after a driving period of four and a half hours, which scope for dividing this break into periods of fifteen minutes. Parliament recommends a weekly rest period of at least 45 hours whilst providing under certain conditions for the reduction of this period to 36 hours (the Council proposing 24 hours);
- the definition of driving time is also altered in order to take account of the time taken by drivers to travel to their place of work, in the event of their driving themselves to work (and if their journey is over 100 kilometres).
- scope for drivers taking a reduced weekly rest period in their vehicle is withdrawn;
- Parliament has made more stringent the provision barring transport enterprises from remunerating drivers on the basis of distance travelled and/or the volume of goods carried, and from allocating bonuses;
- the article concerning the penalties available to Member States in the event of violation of the regulation is also made more stringent;
- the minimum number of checks to be carried out in the Member States shall be set at least 2% of the total of days worked from 1 January 2007, 3% from 1 January 2009 and 4% from 1 January 2011. The last phase shall only enter into force when the statistics indicate that on average more than 90% of all inspected vehicles are equipped with a digital tachograph.