Greeks logged in over 40 UK trucks
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by Sally Nash
• Commercial Motor is receiving reports that the scourge of UK transport firms using cheap foreign labour abroad is not just confined to Turkey: the same thing is happening in Greece.
Angry owner-drivers are reporting scores of British-registered vehicles at the port of Ancona in Italy, which has a sea route to Greece, and at the major Greek port Patras. It is understood that they are being driven by Greek drivers.
One UK driver has logged a list of more than 40 registration plates of trucks driven by Greek drivers. Many of the trucks have D. E and F plates; most of them are said to be without 0-licences or road tax.
This appears to mirror the Turkish situation, where drivers were said to be avoiding taxes, visas and insurance while employers were saving money on wages and transit charges (CM 16-22 Oct 1997). Because costs were lower, Turkish drivers were able to undercut British hauliers' rates—and British drivers warn that this is now happening in Greece.
"This is disgusting," says one owner-driver. "We are trying to survive out here, paying everything we should, like tax, and yet work is being taken from under our noses by foreign drivers using unlicensed trucks." E The farmers' blockades in northern Greece are now over. The action was inspired by the collapse of negotiations between the farmers and the Greek agricultural ministry.