Czech Business Today

Illegal practices in transport sector were mentioned by some Member States as the main argument to apply minimum wage on international transport operations and burdensome administrative requirements on transport operators.

Road transport workers are highly mobile; therefore the directive on Posting of workers does not fit this sector. The European Commission plead that the international transport operations fall under the scope of the directive therefore they cannot be exempted from its rules. However, it recognizes the need for specific rules for transport sector. Social aspects of the road transport including posting will be part of the Commission’s road package foreseen by the end of May. It will focus, among other things, on better enforcement of rules and closer cooperation among Member States’ authorities in order to eliminate illegal practices and frauds such as letterbox companies or continuous cabotage.

The Commission is also considering setting a reasonable period of time during which the directive on posting would not apply on international transport operations and is exploring technical aspects on how to enforce it. Use of digital tachographs and eCMR system could be a solution. According to Jan Němec from IRU, reasonable period of time could be 4 or 6 weeks. After this period the drivers would be obliged to return to their country. “National measures taken by Germany, France, Netherlands, Austria and Italy threaten transport operators who do the normal transport operations”, highlighted Emanuel Šíp from the Czech Chamber of Commerce. We have to avoid administrative burden and additional costs put on operators such as translation of documents including pay slips and costs for representative bodies in a particular country as 90% of operators are small (up to ten vehicles). The debate on the revision of posting of workers directive has divided the European Parliament. Employment committee, leading on this dossier, is going through 500 amendments received by its members.

View of Czech Minister of Transport Dan Ťok
“We need to find a suitable solution on the Internal Market which will avoid frauds and illegal practices and allow normal international transport”.

The discussion will be live and long, however we need to adopt a quick EU solution and avoid mushrooming of national measures. Social aspects of the road package were discussed on 27th March 2017 in Brussels during a debate organized by CEBRE – Czech Business Representation to the EU and Czech Permanent Representation to the EU.