Inland waterway transport: River Traffic Information Services RIS for safety, security and efficiency of inland navigation

 The committee adopted the report by Renate SOMMER (EPP-ED, DE) tabling a number of amendments to the proposal under the 1st reading of the codecision procedure:

- RIS guidelines and technical specifications should take account of and build on work carried out in this field by relevant international organisations;

- the list of objectives laid down for RIS should not include security, as this relates to persons rather than to traffic and transport and is therefore inappropriate in this context;

- to simplify the scope of the directive, MEPs specified that it should apply only to waterways of class IV and above which are linked by a similar waterway to a waterway of class IV or above of another Member State. They accordingly deleted the exemption provision for a waterway network not linked to the network of another Member State (isolated network), as it would now be excluded from the outset;

- the list of possible RIS services should be included in the definition in Article 3(a) rather than in Article 4, to make it clear that these are possibilities and not compulsory elements;

- notices to skippers should include such important safety information as the maximum allowable draught, as well as simply the water level;

- the committee proposed new wording to Article 4 to make it clear that the directive obliges the Member States to take measures to establish RIS services and encourage their use, but does not place any obligation on private users, boat masters and ship operators to install the relevant equipment;

- to ensure consistent legislation in the field of transport, the corresponding wording of the 2004 directive on the interoperability of electronic road tolls in the EU should be adopted with regard to the use of satellite positioning technologies;

- the Commission should be able to extend the 24-month deadline for Member States to comply with the requirements for setting up RIS not only in the case of inland waterways with low traffic density but also "in respect of inland waterways for which the cost of such implementation would be disproportionate to its benefits".