Cabotage in Road Haulage

On 1 July 1998 road cabotage in the movement of freight has been fully liberalised.

This means that from that date a haulier from a Member State who holds a Community licence, can transport goods, on a temporary basis, between two points within another Member State. “On a temporary basis” means that these transports must not be carried out over a longer period of time or systematically or continuously. To clarify this notion of “temporality” the Commission has issued an interpretative communication. For some of the new Member States transitional periods still apply and hauliers from these countries are excluded from performing cabotage in other Member States.

The legal basis for cabotage in goods transport is Council Regulation (EEC) No 3118/93 of 25 October 1993.

Study on Road Cabotage in the freight transport market (pdf document)

DG TREN has commissioned the study in order to acquire a more comprehensive understanding of the market for road cabotage, i.e. national road transport by non-resident hauliers, in the EUR-15 Member States and Slovenia. Disclaimer: the study has been carried out at the request of the European Commission but the content and the views expressed remain the responsibility of the contractants.

The main findings are:

Road cabotage still only accounts for about 1% of total road transport in the EU, despite an 100% increase since its liberalization in 1998; however, in some Member States, road cabotage takes a bigger share of the national market (almost 3% in France and Belgium).
For hauliers from certain Member States road cabotage is an important part of their business: for hauliers from Luxemburg, for instance, cabotage represents almost 25% of their total transport performance.
While road cabotage is governed by a Council regulation and the Commission has adopted an interpretative communication on road cabotage, several Member States and road transport associations have expressed the need for a more precise and clearer definition of this activity. The current rules are seen to leave too much room for interpretation and to be difficult to enforce.

These findings and the recommendations contained in the study will be taken into account in this year’s revision of the market access legislation for road transport.

According to the ETF affiliated members, the statistics on cabotage for road haulage, underesteem the phenomenon. The ETF affiliated members demand an European definition of cabotage.

This issue will also be discussed during the meeting of the 5/9/2006 in the social Dialogue.

VERY IMPORTANT!!

According to European legislation, the Posting of workers’ Directive Posting of Workers - 96/71/EC Directive 96/71/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 December 1996 concerning the posting of workers in the framework of the provision of services has to be implemented during cabotage! This means that for example, an Estonian driver, doing cabotage, in DK, for more than one week, should be paid the same salary as a Danish driver.