E.E.C. Licensing Quota Changes
Page 7
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
FROM A SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT QINCE it was clear that the six States
of the E.E.C. were unlikely to accept an automatic widening of the Community quota for the international transport of goods by road, the E.E.C. Commission is understood to have decided that the longdelayed earlier quota plans be dropped and that a quota of 750 Community licences be issued in the first full year. In each subsequent year the Commission is to fix the ,quota size by agreement with a committee representing the ymember States: the Council of Ministers would act as arbiter in event of disputes. Within five years from the start of the Community quotas all the existing bilateral quotas would be replaced.
This is the only obvious change which has been made by the Commission in drawing up new draft regulations to put before the E.E.C. Council: the latter body is to discuss them initially on June 14.
Among the other items in the Commission's first draft are: regulations for a forked rates system; a directive On the procedures to be adopted for issuing the Community quota licences; a method of organizing the inquiry into infrastructure costs; and a draft directive on the elimination of inequalities in measures currently affecting transport. The latter directive deals with the abolition of double taxation, the harmonization of insurance systems and rates, and of such things as working conditions for transport crews and rates of overtime pay.
Since the draft proposals have to be approved by the Council of Ministers. the Economic and Social Committee and the European Parliament it is unlikely that decisions will be reached before the end of the year.