EC/Slovenia agreement: ecopoints for heavy vehicles travelling through Austria from 1st January 2004

PURPOSE : signature, provisional application and conclusion of an Agreement in the form of an exchange of letters between the European Community and the Republic of Slovenia concerning the transitional points system applicable to heavy goods vehicles travelling through Austria from 1 January 2004 to 30 April 2004. PROPOSED ACT : Council Decision. CONTENT : the Additional Protocol to the Agreement between the European Community and the Republic of Slovenia in the field of transport establishes that a system of ecopoints, equivalent to that applicable to Community heavy goods vehicles in transit through Austria, will apply to Slovenian road freight traffic in transit through Austria, with effect from 1 January 1997 until 31 December 2003. The Commission adopted a proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing a system of ecopoints to be applied to heavy goods vehicles in transit through Austria for the year 2004. This proposal was the subject of an agreement between the European Parliament and the Council following the conciliation procedure on 25 November 2003. This agreement will lead to the adoption of a Regulation which will enter into force on 1 January 2004 (refer to COD/2001/0310). From 1 May 2004, the new Member States, including Slovenia, will be part of the new transitional points system established by this Regulation for the transit of heavy goods vehicles through Austria. For reasons of equality of treatment and continuity of international commitments undertaken by the Community and Slovenia, the new transitional points system should be applied to Slovenia for the period from 1 January 2004 to 30 April 2004. The Community should therefore now open negotiations with Slovenia in order to reach a formal agreement. Given the short timescale in which the Agreement must be applied (from 1.1.2004), the Commission calls on the Council to pronounce, at the same time, on the recommendation for negotiations and the proposals for Council decisions on the signature, provisional application and conclusion of the Agreement. It therefore submits the relevant recommendation and proposals for decisions to the Council.�