Grosch (PPE-DE). – (DE) Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should first like to thank the rapporteur for his work, but also the other Members for the numerous coordination meetings. With 300 amendments the work was not easy.

The main issue raised in this context was the necessity of a new regulation. Opinions differed on the priorities to be addressed, and colleagues in the Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats will be taking the floor on this matter again today. In principle, however, the PPE-DE Group is in favour of amendment.

The aim was to strike a balance between road safety on the one hand and, on the other, flexibility in a profession where even today there are labour shortages right across Europe, perhaps because the conditions are unfavourable, but also because demand is very high. This was a challenge for us.

There was unanimity – and I should like to underline this here – on at least two points, the first being on checks. All Members agree that we can adopt the best directives in the world here, but if there are no effective checks on compliance in the Member States then we will not achieve anything. Less than 1%, as is the case in certain countries, is not enough. The 2% minimum that has been suggested here should certainly be respected. In addition, a report on implementation should be presented to Parliament at regular intervals, so that we, and also the Member States, can react in good time. It must not be the case, as the French say, that, 'Celui qui triche gagne le plus d'argent', that is that those who do not comply with these directives make the most money. That is precisely what we want to prevent: unfair competition at the expense of, amongst other things, safety.

Secondly, there was unanimity on the scope, namely that we should include third countries: we want to create a European transport area and anyone who uses this area must play by the same rules. We know that for various reasons companies move their headquarters to third countries, not only for economic reasons, but for other reasons too. That is why it is important over time for us to create this European transport area.

We wanted to build in flexibility. Exemptions have been discussed and obviously I do not want to mention all of them. We do however continue to attach importance to short-distance drivers and taxi drivers being excluded, although of course we also support exemptions in certain areas, such as for farmers, who do seasonal work, and for breakdown services. The concept of safety should not mean that the regulation imposes restrictions on the people who are actually responsible for safety.

One area where we are still undecided is courier services. Some think that they should be in, while others believe that the numerous accidents are not related to rest periods and driving times but are rather a question of speed. We have also introduced flexibility to the breaks. We did not just want weekends of between 24 and 45 hours, but also 36 hours. We also want to take account of those countries that are not in central Europe, because tomorrow, with enlargement, we have to bear in mind that the centre is going to shift and that it is not only going to be rest periods and driving times that will determine whether a haulage business is efficient or not.

We do not call into question the 12-hour nightly rest period either, with the related flexibility of nine plus three hours. This also applies to the daily rest periods and the short breaks. We wanted a certain degree of flexibility here, to take account on the one hand of each driver's work rhythm but on the other of the needs inherent in the job.

Safety was the other aspect that needed to be brought into the equation. Rest periods, daily rest periods and weekend rest periods are issues of safety and it is not unknown for overtired drivers to be involved in accidents. Nevertheless, we should not exaggerate this either. Some statistics show the risk to be very high. Overall we work on the basis of realistic statistics showing that this is the case for around 15% of serious road traffic accidents. This is not about singling out the roads yet again for wholesale condemnation. The initiative being taken here by the Commission and Parliament will, I believe, improve safety.

As far as infringements are concerned, as we see it taking vehicles out of service is the best approach. This is not at odds with the legislation in the various countries and only one thing is required, namely that the vehicle should be taken out of service until the failure is corrected. In short, I would say that by adopting the stricter rules in this regulation, and by creating new conditions, we can have a positive economic impact on this sector.

This will, however, do nothing to change the fact that in the future road transport will continue to be one of the major players in transport as a whole. I am referring here to the discussions that we had earlier. This does not in any way mean that if we want to bring about a modal shift it can only be done by adopting legislation on road transport. Instead this must go hand in hand with clear initiatives in the other transport sectors. Thank you for your attention.