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20th June 2002, Page 7
20th June 2002
Page 7
Page 7, 20th June 2002 — RHA
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

call to join assault on ED a The Road Haulage Association is urging the government to join forces with the Spanish and Finnish authorities in a campaign to kill off the Working Time Directive, which is due for implementation in 2005.

The Spanish government is seeking to throw out the entire Directive because it includes owner-drivers—it has lodged a complaint with the European Court of Justice, claiming this breaches human rights.

Owner-drivers have already won a derogation from the Directive until 2007, when the EC will review their possible inclusion from 2009.

The Finns' argument is that the Directive was not subject to the proper assessment of its potential costs to the industry.

Now the BHA is pressing the UK government to join the fray. It has written to Transport Secretary Alistair Darling arguing that with an estimated cost of at least £7,000 a driver the Directive will place an unreasonable burden on the industry, in contravention of the Treaty of Rome. This states that Directives must avoid imposing constraints "which would hold back the creation and development of small and medium-sized undertakings".

RHA chief executive Roger King says: "We are asking the Department for Transport to be our champion on this issue. We are asking 'do you care that this impacts us and will affect small businesses?' If they come back and say they don't think there's an extra cost then we'll know what they think about us." However, a spokesman frort the Freight Transpori Association plays down thE chances of a legal challenge: " think the reality of it is that thE law is here and it's a done deal The process that the ETA hat involved itself in is to make thE WTD as sympathetic to thE industry as possible. The idea a scrapping it is not a possibility.'

The ETA has come up with 2 concrete definition of the tern "self-employed" which suggest. most UK owner-drivers would bE included within the WTD from itt proposed launch date in 2005


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