EU Transport Council

Thursday 6th June 2013 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Stephen Hammond)]

I will attend the final Transport Council of the Irish presidency (the presidency) taking place in Luxembourg on Monday 10 June.

There will be a progress report on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing the Connecting Europe facility. In general, I support this proposal and welcome the progress that has been made. However, on the transport side, there remain some issues relating to transport corridors which we are working to resolve.

The presidency intends to agree general approaches on four proposals.

The first is a proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the interoperability of the rail system within the European Union (Recast) (part of the fourth railway package). I fully support this proposal and the adoption of a general approach by the Council.

The second is a proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the technical roadside inspection of the roadworthiness of commercial vehicles and a proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Council directive 1999/37/EC on the registration documents of vehicles (roadworthiness package). There are some issues to be resolved on the technical roadside inspection of commercial vehicles aspect of the package where we are concerned about the inclusion of vans. I will express this concern at Council and I will seek to limit the impact on vans. I will be supporting the presidency proposal for a directive on the registration documents of vehicles.

The third is a proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on occurrence reporting in civil aviation amending regulation (EU) No 996/2010 and repealing directive 2003/42/EC, Commission regulation (EC) No 1321/2007 and Commission regulation (EC) No 1330/2007. I fully support this proposal and the adoption of general approach by the Council.

The last is a proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on marine equipment and repealing directive 96/98/EC. This proposal originally contained provisions that would have imposed significant new burdens on the UK maritime industry, such as requirements for electronic tagging and the submissions of patents. During negotiation, we were able to secure the removal of these provisions, and bring the proposal back into line with the existing regime and minimise its impact on business. The UK now supports all the objectives of the proposal, and is content with the current version.

Under any other business, the Commission will present its proposals on the ports policy review and air passenger rights. The Commission will also provide information on the aviation emissions trading scheme (ETS), aviation price transparency and passenger ship safety.