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ruches: Mr Fowler ;et to name the day
Page 5
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HAIN has backed down over the introduction of tachophs and now hopes to introduce the instrument into all iicles over 3.5 tonnes by December 1981, according to sources Brussels.
The news follows a visit to ussels by Transport Minister >man Fowler last week len he asked the EEC to cept a two-year implemenion period.
Under the EEC rules the rho should have been pught into use in the UK in 76 — three years after itain joined the Community. But it was not until the European Court ruled that Britain was in breach of EEC regulations earlier this year that the Government decided to act.
Even then Labour Transport Secretary William Rodgers made it clear that the decision to act was made solely because of the ruling, but he could not do so because of the General Election. Already Mr Fowler has had talks in Brussels with EEC Transport Commissioner Richard Burke and sources at EEC headquarters say that Mr Burke understood the British desire for a further period of grace — but this is bound to cause complications.
Mr Burke would have preferred Britain to bring the deadline forward by three months to co-incide with the date of the Irish introduction — and this is a point that is bound to be made when the EEC Council of Transport Ministers meets in Brussels on December 6.
The Commission has still to agree to the British proposals but it is thought that there will be few or no objections raised.
Mr Fowler is thought to have made a very favourable impression on his EEC colleagues in his official first meetings with them.
Sources say that the EEC has found Mr Fowler a "more flexible" man than his predecessor Mr Rodgers.
The tachograph issue is one• of the many that the Government is expected to include in the all-embracing Transport Bill to be presented, it is thought, early in November.
By that time the Government may have other more pressing problems that could divert attention away from some of the more controversial aspects of the Bill, which will also contain proposals for passenger licensing, sales of shares in the National Freight Corporation and possibly the raising of the top weight limits for commercial vehicles.