Common rules of access to the international haulage of goods, dating back to the Convention on the Contract for the International Carriage of Goods by Road (the CMR Convention) signed in Geneva in 1956, are at the core of the EU transport market. Under the CMR Convention, and in accordance with Regulation (EC) 1072/2009, a Community licence is sufficient for the haulage of goods between two Member States. The CMR Convention applies only for the part of the route that is transported by road, which means that any further (i.e. multimodal) transport of goods to a third country is irrelevant for the purposes of the Convention. Therefore, it should be sufficient for bilateral road freight between Member States to be documented in accordance with the terms of the CMR Convention and Regulation 1072/2009, regardless of any further steps in the transport chain. Unfortunately, Italian customs authorities wrongfully treat the chain of multimodal transport as a whole, requiring companies that conduct bilateral EU transport operations to produce third-country permits, on the grounds that the final consignee, as specified in the CMR consignment note, is a third country.

Can the Commission clarify whether the requirements imposed by the Italian authorities comply with Regulation 1072/2009, and state whether they are not detrimental to the promotion of multimodal transport?