Agreements EC/Bulgaria, EC/Hungary: road and combined transport, repartition of authorizations

The committee adopted the report (codecision procedure, first reading) by Emmanouil MASTORAKIS (PES, GR) approving the Commission proposal with one amendment. Although the proposal for a regulation in question was based on the road transport agreements between the EC and Hungary and Bulgaria, it was concerned only with the distribution of authorisations among the EU Member States. The committee endorsed the proposal in that it felt that the authorisations proposed on the basis of statistics were a reflection of objective criteria and therefore served the interests of all the parties involved. However, reliable statistics were available only for Hungary and not for Bulgaria, thereby compelling the Commission to "predict" the actual data itself. The report also pointed out that it would be desirable to include Romania in the proposal, as it was also a transit country between Greece and the Community. The committee adopted an amendment calling for the date stipulated for the distribution of authorisations to be changed from 15 November to 15 October of the previous year to enable the national administrations and the transport companies to plan early and take account of the possible use of the railways. �