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Britain wins hours dela
Page 9
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THERE WILL be no moves to force an eight-hour driving day on Britain, at least until the beginning of next year.
This was the good news from Brussels on Friday, and followed a session of tough talking between the new EEC Transport Commissioner and Transport Minister William Rodgers last week (CM, Febrary 25).
Some understanding was obviously reached during those discussions because the European Commission moved surprisingly quickly to grant Britain a further delay from implementing the notorious EEC Social Regulation 543/69.
It had been expected that the Commission would not come to any decision until its meeting this week, by which time Britain's last deferment would have run out.
And it was also thought that the Commission would be taking a hard line on Member States which did not honour their Community legislation obligations. Whatever soothing words Mr Rodgers used, they certainly seem to have worked and UK goods and passenger operators on internal journeys have been given a 10-month breathing space. At the moment 543/69 requires an eight-hour driving day, as opposed to the UK's 10-hour day, and a maximum daily journey of 450km.
But a number of countries are pressing for changes to make the rules more flexible. There is a suggestion that the rules should apply only to international journeys.
In the light of this, the Commission seems to have accepted the argument that it would make no sense to make Britain enforce regulations which were about to be changed.
There is also a proposal that would give the UK a transistional period of five years after 1978, before it was required to bring in the regulations.
Now that a further delay has been granted, Britain has until the end of the year to work on winning a revision of 543/69 which it finds acceptable.