EU institutions reach deal to enforce cross-border traffic offences
The European Parliament and member states reached a deal Tuesday night (12 March) to enforce punishments for cross-border traffic offences, including flouting controversial regulations in urban areas prohibiting vehicle traffic.
Negotiations between the Council and Parliament stalled last month as an agreement could not be reached over whether to punish foreign drivers for breaching vehicle-free or low-emissions zones in EU cities.
However, according to comments made by Belgian Minister for Mobility Georges Gilkinet, member states seem to have got their way on the matter.
“Stricter and more efficient rules on enforcing penalties for traffic offences, including violations of vehicle access restrictions, will improve safety on European motorways and guarantee safer and greener residential areas across the EU,” Gilkinet said in a Council press release from Tuesday.
“The revised legislation also ensures equal treatment for all EU drivers [irrespective] of their nationality,” he said.
A coalition of MEPs on the right expressed opposition last month to including violations of urban vehicle access regulations (UVARs) in the scope of offences enforceable across borders.
A spokesperson for the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) group told Euractiv in February that UVARs were “inherently socially exclusive” and enforcing them across borders would mean lawmakers were straying from enforcing strictly traffic safety-related offences.
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Content with compromise
While enforcing UVAR violations may have been included in the deal, the EPP released a statement saying the group’s lead lawmaker on the file, Benoît Lutgen, is pleased with the outcome as other traffic offences will now be punished regardless of a driver’s nationality, which was not as easy to do before as member states had difficulty following up with and receiving fines from non-resident drivers.
Enforceable offences include speeding, drunk driving, dangerous passing, crossing a solid line, hit-and-runs, and more.
“Lutgen is happy that a hit-and-run accident will not be left unpunished if the crime is committed in the EU,” the comment read.
“From now on, member states will be able to prosecute hit-and-run offenders coming from another member state,” it continued. “This agreement on the directive strengthens cooperation among member states but also ensures effective enforcement of penalties for recidivist behaviour.”
The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) also celebrated the deal. In a press release sent out Wednesday morning (13 March), ETSC Policy Director Ellen Townsend said, “Letting foreign-registered drivers get away with traffic offences isn’t fair and makes our roads less safe, so it’s great that the EU is not only extending the range of traffic offences that can be followed up across borders but also improving the chances of fines being paid.”
Other aspects of the file
Townsend added that work “still needs to be done” and advocated for penalty points on driving licences to also be adopted across borders.
This certain-number-of-strikes-and-you’re-out demerit point system had been advocated for by centre-left Socialists and Democrats (S&D) MEP Isabel Garcia Munoz on the directive revising rules for who can hold driving licences and for how long in the EU. A position advocating for EU-wide demerit points was not adopted in Parliament.
Another sticking point in negotiations was whether to allow private debt collectors to go after EU drivers who hadn’t paid fines. A spokesperson for EPP said the group successfully negotiated a ban on private debt collectors to go into effect two years after these rules are transposed into member states’ national laws.
“We simply cannot accept that private debt collectors benefit from fines by adding disproportionate costs,” the EPP statement read.
The time by which member states must notify foreign drivers of their infraction and penalty has also been truncated in this agreement. Both groups of negotiators also agreed to encourage member states to collaborate and help the law enforcement agency penalising the responsible party locate and punish said driver. If the deal is formalised, member states will have 11 months to issue a traffic offence notice to the offending driver.
Lead lawmaker Kosma Złotowski from the European Conservatives and Reformers (ECR) group said on Wednesday, “We have significantly strengthened the position of drivers, who must be given adequate and timely information in a language they understand about their rights and the procedure for appealing against a penalty.”
In the interest of transparency, the Commission, who put forth this legislation as part of a “road safety package” in 2023, is tasked with making a portal informing drivers of rules, appeal options, and fines, according to the Parliament’s press release.
Now, the deal has to be officially adopted by Council and Parliament. Once this is complete, the text will undergo a legal and linguistic review before it is formalised. From formal adoption, member states will have 30 months to incorporate the legislation into their national laws.
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