Transport of dangerous goods by road

The Committee on Transport and Tourism adopted the report by Mrs Dinguirard on the proposal for a directive from the Council relating to the harmonization of the laws of the Member States on the transport of hazardous goods by road. The increase in the cross-border transport of dangerous and environmentally hazardous goods by road was a consequence of the deregulation of the European road transport market. With the removal of internal borders it had become absolutely essential to put in place coherent European-level legislation on international transport and many bilateral agreements between Member States now had to be harmonized. For this reason the Commission put forward a directive which was designed to allow the provisions of the ADR agreement to be extended to cross-border transport. However, the Committee on Transport did not fully agree with its rapporteur, who had proposed a more fundamental approach to the problem, which combined the carriage of dangerous goods by road, with the objective of improving safety levels, with the production of certain prohibited substances and other dangerous or environmentally-hazardous goods which were transported. Most of the members of the Committee on Transport also failed to support the view of Mrs Dinguirard that the term "environmentally hazardous" should be added to the term "dangerous goods". In her opinion the term "environmentally hazardous" had assumed growing importance in recent years. The report was finally adopted with only four amendments. As a result of this the rapporteur voted against her own report. �