Admission of non-resident carriers to national road passenger transport services

The rapporteur, Mr Killilea (UPE, IRL), welcomed the deregulation of the bus and coach passenger transport sector and at the same time underlined that this had to go hand in hand with the harmonisation of the social, fiscal and technical conditions applying to the road transport system. He also wanted to see measures introduced to reduce the risk of distortions of competition in a sector that had become more vulnerable seeing that the direct benefits of lower prices belonged to the most impoverished strata of society, such as poor students and emigrants with their families. Finally, Mr Killilea stressed that the deregulation of this sector would also pay dividends because of the reduction in the number of vehicles on the roads, which would in turn mean fewer traffic jams and less pollution along the main transport arteries. Mr Kinnock stated that the two proposals aimed at promoting bus and coach transport at both national and international level were fully consistent with the approach outlined in the Green Paper ‘The Citizens’ Network’. He then went on to list those amendments on cabotage that could be taken over, namely Amendments Nos 1, 3, 4, 6, 9, 11, 14, 16 (par. 2) and 18 (part 1). However, he rejected Amendments Nos 2, 5, 7, 8, 10 and 13 (the latter because it would excessively restrict the rights of cabotage). He also excluded Amendment No 12, which ran counter to the objective of harmonisation that was the very subject of the proposal, along with Amendments Nos 15 and 16 (part 1).