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

The amended Commission proposal includes nine of the 16 amendments adopted by Parliament at first reading. These concern in particular: - the need to encourage gradual approximation of national legislation; - the general principle of the liberalization of transport of passengers by bus or coach and gradual harmonization of the conditions of competition; - the need from an environmental point of view to offer carriers the possibility of optimizing the degree of capacity utilization of their vehicles; - the accessibility of transport systems, which must be considered one of the objectives of the common transport policy; - unifying the system applicable to cabotage operations of regular services; - the place of establishment of transport companies; - exclusion of urban and suburban services from the scope of the regulation on cabotage; - deletion of Article 4 of the original proposal, which concerned the legal provisions applicable to cabotage operations carried out in the course of a regular international service; - the report on the application of the regulation and the possible submission of a proposal on the basis of the report's conclusions. The Commission did not accept the amendments on: harmonization of national cabotage systems; introduction of a new principle of transport policy; new proposals to be put forward by the Commission; a uniform system for residents and non-residents; representation of the undertaking on the territory where it carries out cabotage services; exclusion of regional transport from the scope of the regulation; and production of a report on application of Regulation 2454/92/EEC before the end of 1996. �