6Third mobility package: electronic freight transport information
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Committee’s assessment |
Legally and politically important |
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Not cleared from scrutiny; further information requested; but scrutiny waiver granted for a General Approach to be sought at 6 June Transport Council |
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Document details |
Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on electronic freight transport information |
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Legal base |
Article 91 and 100(2) TFEU, ordinary legislative procedure, QMV |
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Department |
Transport |
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Document Number |
(39731), 9060/18 + ADDs 1—4, COM(18) 279 |
Summary and Committee’s conclusions
6.1The proposal under scrutiny would create an obligation for public authorities in Member States to accept freight transport documentation in electronic form. The proposal would cover documents relating to the transportation of goods across all modalities. It also aims to ensure that the obligation to accept such information—in electronic form—is implemented in a uniform and consistent manner. The substance of the proposal relates to the setting of technical specifications deemed necessary in order to facilitate the achievement of this obligation.
6.2The proposal was last considered by the Committee on 1 May 2019 and, in light of developments at EU-level, a number of questions were raised and requests for further information made. These related, in particular, to amendments suggested to the proposal by the European Parliament’s Transport Committee.31 Minister of State for Transport (Jesse Norman MP), has since written to the Committee—on 16 May 2019—in response to the Committee’s Report of 1 May.32 The Minister requests clearance of the proposal from scrutiny—or a scrutiny waiver—so that the Government can support a General Approach likely to be sought by the Romanian Presidency at the 6 June 2019 Transport Council.
Minister’s letter of 16 May 2019
6.3In his letter of 16 May 2019, the Minister first addresses the Committee’s questions on whether those parts of the proposal relating to requirements, rules and procedures for setting electronic freight transport information (eFTI) datasets and for accessing the eFTI platform can be considered ‘essential’ elements of the draft Regulation within the meaning of Article 290 TFEU. The Committee asked this question as determining the parts of a Regulation or Directive that are ‘essential’ has an important bearing on whether the power to amend their form should be exercises via delegated or implementing acts (which, for the proposal under scrutiny, would involve fleshing-out the standards required for the operation of the eFTI platform). Whereas, in this regard, the Commission favours using implementing acts, the European Parliament has fallen on the side of delegated acts.
6.4In response to more specific questioning, the Minister states that the Commission has not published any guidance on what—for the adoption of tertiary legislation—constitutes an essential element of a legislative act nor is he aware of any case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union on this issue. The Minister rehearses the procedure for the adoption of implementing acts and agrees with the Commission that where uniform conditions are deemed necessary—as it argues for eFTI—implementing acts should be used. In accounting for the difference in approach between the Commission and the Parliament, the Minister states that “the Parliament tends to prefer Delegated rather than Implementing Acts in general”. It can be surmised that this is due to the greater role the European Parliament plays in the adoption of delegated acts versus implementing acts. For delegated acts (which is not the case for implementing acts), this involves a two month period—after publication by the Commission—within which the European Parliament can make a formal objection.
6.5The Committee notes the EU’s ‘Interinstitutional Agreement’ of 13 April 2016 on ‘Better Law-Making’,33 in particular, its annex ‘Common Understanding between the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission on Delegated Acts’. Although its first section is dedicated to ‘scope and general principles’ it does not provide any specific guidance on the criteria that should be considered by the institutions when suggesting the conferral of power on the Commission to adopt delegated or implementing acts.
6.6The Committee also asked three further questions of the Minister—Ms Nusrat Ghani MP—relating to the substance of the proposal. These concerned the European Parliament Transport Committee’s recommendations to extend the scope of the proposal to:
- (1) place an obligation on economic operators to submit regulatory information electronically to Member State authorities;
- (2) cover regulatory information other than that relating to the transportation of goods, for example, with regard to roads, covering issues such as driver qualifications; and
- (3) allow national competent authorities to have access, in real-time, to all relevant information stored on the eFTI platform for the purposes of ensuring the effect enforcement of Union transport law.
6.7The responding Minister, Jesse Norman MP, explains that amendment (2) was removed from the European Parliament’s final position on the proposal. On amendment (1), this is said to have been retained and justified against the benefits to be derived from ‘going paperless’, specifically, with regard to improving regulatory enforcement. The Minister states that, although going paperless may be an inevitable choice for operators, the Government would prefer to keep this requirement voluntary. He further states that “…such a burden should not be placed on industry” and such a decision should be based upon their [industry’s] own economic circumstances.
6.8In response to amendment (3), the Minister explains the reasoning for the European Parliament’s proposal—mainly, as above, for the purpose of improving enforcement activities—but does not explicitly endorse its inclusion.
6.9The Minister informs the Committee that working group discussions on the proposal have resulted in further amendments to the draft Regulation. Of these amendments, the most noteworthy relates to the potential relationship between eFTI and relevant international conventions. The current working draft of the proposal is said to include text that would require the Commission to seek to achieve interoperability of eFTI with internationally accepted data models and, furthermore, to minimise compliance costs for operators and Member States.
6.10In its first consideration of the proposal, the Committee—in its Forty-fourth Report to the House—questioned the necessity of developing new technical specifications for the interoperability of IT systems when similar standards already exist, for example, the UN/CEFFACT e-CMR protocol. In response, Ms Nusrat Ghani MP explained the added value of the Commission’s proposal—in that it would cover modes of transport other than road—and its necessity (as not all Member States are signatories to relevant international standards). The Committee notes with interest the responding Minister’s support for an approach that would (seemingly) lean more heavily on existing international standards.
6.11We thank the Minister for his letter of 16 May 2019 and the comprehensive responses he has provided to our questions and requests for further information.
6.12The Committee is content to grant the requested scrutiny waiver for the 6 June Transport Council. We request a summary of the outcome of the Council—detailing how the Government vote and the agreed form of the proposal—by 3 July 2019.
6.13We retain the proposal under scrutiny.
Full details of the documents
Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on electronic freight transport information: (39731), 9060/18 + ADDs 1 -4, COM(18) 279.
Previous Committee Reports
Forty-fourth Report HC 301–xliii (2017–19) chapter 4 (14 November 2018); Sixty-fourth Report HC 301–lxii (2017–19) chapter 2 (1 May 2018).
31 European Parliament Committee on Transport and Tourism, ‘Draft report on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on electronic freight transport information’ (25 October 2018).
32 Letter from Jesse Norman MP to Sir William Cash MP, 16 May 2019.
Published: 11 June 2019