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Specific and temporary measures in view of COVID-19 outbreak concerning the validity of certain certificates, licences and authorisations and the postponement of certain periodic checks and training in certain areas of transport legislation

In “Transport and Tourism - TRAN”

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For a brief overview of the key points of the adopted text and its significance for the citizen, please see the corresponding summary note.

Due to the COVID-19 crisis, the EU transport operators and other persons concerned have been in many cases unable to complete formalities or procedures to comply with certain provisions of EU law on the renewal, extension or continued validity of certificates, licences or authorisations. For the same reason, the competent authorities of the Member States have been sometimes unable to deal with the requests of transport operators before the expiry of the applicable deadlines. All this called for an urgent action at the EU level, as mentioned also during the videoconference of Member States' Transport Ministers on 29 April 2020.

As part of EU's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the European Commission adopted on 29 April 2020 a legislative proposal laying down specific and temporary measures on the renewal and extension of the period of validity of certain certificates, licences and authorisations and on the postponement of certain periodic checks and training. The Commission presented this proposal together with other legislative initiatives intended to ease the regulatory burden and reduce costs for transport companies that are experiencing difficulties due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The proposal applies to road, rail and inland waterways transport as well as maritime security. It concerns for instance driving licences; tachographs; roadworthiness tests for motor vehicles and their trailers; operating licences; rail single safety certificates or authorisations; and boat masters' certificates. The Commission proposes to extend the validity of those certificates, licences or authorisations that would expire between 1 March 2020 and 31 August 2020 (in most cases by six months). The Commission also encourages the use of alternative control means, for instance to control the activity of drivers that have not been able to renew their expired, lost, stolen, malfunctioning or damaged tachograph; or to conduct maritime security inspections and surveys. 

Given the urgency, the Commission has not carried out any formal stakeholder consultation nor impact assessment. However, Member States authorities and transport associations have called upon the Commission to adopt such a proposal, and some of them have expressed concerns about the fragmentation that could result without the Union action. The Commission called the co-legislators to adopt the regulation as a matter of urgency. 

The Council adopted its position on 8 May. It followed the Commission proposal but allowed some differences between Member States as regards the spread of the pandemic to be taken into account.

The European Parliament adopted its position under the urgency procedure at first reading on 15 May 2020, in line with the Council's position (669 vote in favour, 11 against, 8 abstentions).

The Council formally adopted the modified regulation by written procedure on 20 May 2020. The final act was signed on 25 May 2020 and the Parliament ended its procedure on 26 May 2020. In the final act the validity of some certificates, licenses and authorisations is changed (in some cases extended to seven months). The new temporary rules were published in the Official Journal on 27 May 2020 and they shall apply from 4 June 2020 (with the exception of some articles that shall apply from 28 May 2020).

On 18 January, the European Commission published a new proposal for a regulation aimed, once again, at allowing the renewal of certificates, licences and approvals in the transport sector, as well as the postponement of certain periodic checks and continuous training. The new proposal aims to ensure that the aforementioned documents that would have expired or would expire between 1 September 2020 and 30 April 2021 remain valid for up to seven more months. Similarly, the periodic technical inspections, which were to be carried out between these two dates, should now be able to be carried out no later than seven months after the initial deadline. The Council proposed to extend the validity of certificates, licences and authorisations with an expiry date between 1 September 2020 and 30 June 2021 by ten months. In the final act, adopted on 16 February 2021, the validity was extended by 10 months.

References:

Further reading

Author: Maria Niestadt, Members' Research Service, legislative-train@europarl.europa.eu 

As of 20/03/2023.