The EU Mobility Package will have an adverse effect on Maltese businesses due to the inevitable increases in freight costs if freight operations are to remain feasible,” according to Franco Azzopardi, chairman and CEO of Express Trailers.
He claims that the carriage of goods is artery of Malta’s survival because all that was consumed locally was imported.
“The spillover effect on people’s lives will be price hikes on all imported and exported products due to this increase in freight costs meaning a restraint and choke on any e-commerce initiative on the part of the retailer due to becoming uncompetitive on freight,” he said.
“I am extremely sad, disappointed and outright angry at all this. My expectation was that the EU should not even have come up with such discriminatory initiatives and rules, especially now in these already very delicate economic times,” he added.
The EU Mobility Package adopted by the European Council on April 7 and approved by European Parliament on June 8, will see a major reform of the EU road transport sector that includes new rules claimed to improve drivers’ working conditions, to regulate governing access to the road haulage market and also to regulate maximum work and minimum rest times for drivers.
Azzopardi explained how the EU mobility package will bring major disruption to its operations and costs, which, “needless to say will be passed on to the importer and exporter”.
“Every eight weeks, we will have to bring our trucks back to Malta for a week and then returned back to the continent. This means that every truck will be lying idle for six-and-a-half weeks every year.
Additional trucks needed to fill gap of dead time
“To make good for this and to ensure our steady service, for every eight trucks we have on the continent, we will need to acquire another truck just to fill the gap of the dead time of the fleet.
“Why should we be forced to invest say, €500,000 to acquire five new trucks and incur depreciation and amortisation without any return on investment?”
This, he said, was a capriciously designed rule, camouflaged under an environmental excuse. Miles will still have to covered to carry cargo from exporter to importer.
Those miles will now cost much more due to the amortisation of the cost of unproductive capital tied up the additional trucks.
“The new rules are claimed to supposedly improve working and social conditions for drivers and contribute to road safety. Truckers are now going to be prohibited from doing their weekly rest period of 45 hours in the truck which is their second home. Why impose such a prohibition,” he asked.
Rules unsustainable
Mr Azzopardi mentioned how the EU wants transport companies to also send their drivers home every four weeks. “This is unsustainable, our truckers work on the road out of their own free will, are all well paid and should be free to work the length of tour they want. No authority should interfere unless the truckers are being exploited or unless there is scientifically proven health hazard.”
Azzopardi added it would be a pity if this package were an orchestration by the more influential countries to protect their companies from more competitive companies doing trucking operations on mainland Europe.
He referred to the rule of 'cabotage' which defines that in EU countries, trucking companies cannot do more than three operations in an EU country, within seven days, and now without getting out of that country and 'cooling off' for four days.
“I feel this rule goes head-on against the EU principles of free movement and in Malta’s case, it is paralysing. Malta's size and that of its businesses make it near impossible to have less than three stops or pick-up points from a country.
“We already struggle to operate sustainably. What we do is, by specialising in 'groupage', we load and stack trailers as much as possible, with multiple units of cargo going to the same country regions for dropping off at different addresses so as to optimise tour efficiencies.”
Azzopardi said he was not sure whether Maltese MEPs, together with the transport and economy authorities, fought this EU Mobility Package tooth and nail from the outset.
“Even if since recently, all the local MEPs whichever creed came out strong and united, the timing was wrong. To my knowledge, the EU does not function that way. We came out too late,” he said.