Statistics of goods transport by inland waterways. Codification

PURPOSE: to establish common rules on statistics of goods transport by inland waterways.

LEGISLATIVE ACT: Regulation (EU) 2018/974 of the European Parliament and of the Council on statistics of goods transport by inland waterways.

CONTENT: this Regulation establishes common rules for the production of European statistics concerning inland waterways transport. It codifies and replaces Regulation (EC) No 1365/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council.

The codification is carried out for the sake of legal clarity, since the Regulation has been substantially amended several times.

The new codified Regulation replaces the various acts incorporated over time while fully preserving their content.

The Regulation shall provide the Commission with statistics on freight transport by inland waterways for the monitoring and development of the common transport policy and the transport elements of regional policies and trans-European networks.

In particular, it provides that Member States in which the total volume of goods transported annually by inland waterways as national, international or transit transport exceeds 1 000 000 tonnes shall supply the data in accordance with the tables in Annexes I to IV to the Regulation.

This Regulation shall not apply to: (i) the carriage of goods by vessels of less than 50 deadweight tonnes; (ii) vessels used principally for the carriage of passengers; (iii) vessels used solely for non-commercial purposes by port administrations and public authorities; (iv) vessels used solely for bunkering or storage; (v) vessels not used for the carriage of goods such as fishery vessels.

The effect of this Regulation is limited to those Member States where inland waterway modes of transport exists.

The Commission shall ensure that pilot studies are carried out on the availability of statistical data related to passenger transport by inland waterways, including cross-border transport services. The Union will have to contribute to the cost of carrying out these pilot studies. By 8 December 2020 at the latest, the Commission shall submit a report on the results of these pilot studies. Depending on the results, the Commission shall, if necessary, submit a legislative proposal to amend this Regulation.

The Commission may adopt delegated acts to amend the Regulation on increasing the threshold of 1 million tonnes of statistical coverage of inland waterway transport, to adapt the definitions and to adapt the Annexes in order to take account of economic and technical changes affecting definitions adopted at international level.

ENTRY INTO FORCE: 5.8.2018.