EU Commissioner Adina Valean urges member states to ease rules on truck drivers, open more border points for transport of goods

Transport Commissioner Adina Valean has submitted a series of requests to member states to ease the flow of transport of goods within the European Union as it is essential for the delivery of goods necessary to fight the coronavirus crisis, she said in an interview with G4Media.ro on Tuesday.

She listed a series of derogation measures to the current rules for goods transportation driver within the EU:

• weekly rest time be spent in cabins and not outside to facilitate the social distancing of drivers
• to rise driving time from 4 and a half hours to 5 and a half hours
• to rise daily driving hours from 9 to 11
• weekly rest be postponed from +6 days to +7 days and rest time be restricted to 24 hours

She said contact points have been established with all member states to implement the measures.

Valean said that the much awaited rules should solve the general issues related to transportation across the continent during the crisis period, pointing out that problems can be met not only on the Hungarian-Romanian border, but also along the corridor of access to the Baltic countries through Poland, for example.

She said a solution such as opening separate border points for the transportation of goods if traffic gets intense during existing points was also valid for the passage from Hungary to Romania.

She also said states are urged to agree easier, possibly joint checks on common borders for transporters of goods.

Edited in English by Costin Ionescu

Read full interview in Romanian