MEPs wary of ‘mega-lorry’ rules

Report opposes Commission’s plan for extra-large lorries crossing borders.

Members of the European Parliament’s transport committee are likely to put the brakes on a proposal to allow so-called ‘mega-lorries’ to cross borders in Europe, citing safety and environmental fears.

On Monday (4 November), the committee will debate a report by Jörg Leichtfried, a centre-left Austrian MEP, that opposes a European Commission proposal to allow existing extra-large lorries to cross borders between EU member states.

Under EU law, lorries cannot be longer than 18.75 metres or heavier than 40 tonnes (with cargo). But member states have been allowed, as part of temporary trials, to exceed those limits – and, since last year, allow mega-lorries to cross national borders. The Commission wants this to become the norm. Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands and some German states are all conducting trials. But environmental campaigners fear that changing the law would put pressure on other countries to accept mega-lorries.

The change is part of a proposal to modify rules for lorries in a bid to make them more fuel-efficient. These changes enjoy support from environmental campaigners and from manufacturers. Existing limits on vehicle length discourage more aerodynamic design.

Leichtfried’s report says that allowing the lorries to cross borders would contradict the goals of the Commission’s transport white paper, which calls for a modal shift from road to rail for freight transport. Leichtfried is concerned that some of the Commission’s proposed changes could make lorries too large to be loaded onto trains. Mathias Groote, a centre-left German MEP who chairs the Parliament’s environment committee, last year wrote to Siim Kallas, the European commissioner for transport, objecting to the original change in legal interpretation to allow the oversize lorries.

On Monday, the transport committee will also discuss proposals on air passenger rights, the E-Call emergency system, and new powers for the Commission to force member states to meet deadlines on the Single European Sky – a bid to transform the EU’s 28 airspaces into nine blocs. The idea is unpopular with air- traffic control unions and some member states