Almost three years back, the European Commission put forward proposals on truck travel in Europe essentially limiting the number of stops a ‘foreign’ truck can make in a member state, and prescribing limits to on-the-road periods for trucks and drivers.
One of the motivations behind this legislation is as noble as the EU itself – protecting the driver from abusive conditions. The other motivation may be a bit more subjective and may relate to the fact that highways in Western Europe are flooded with trucking companies from the East, which apparently ride more for less.
What does this have to do with us in Malta? We recently discovered that the proposed rules could mean the end of a business model critical to a number of Maltese freight companies.
The first to bear the brunt of the Union’s proposal would be scores of Maltese store managers, freight planners and sales personnel and finally the truck drivers themselves who would see their service replaced by other companies who can implement the EU rules more effectively.
For there lies the problem with the proposed EU rules. They foresee that trucks need to go back home every eight weeks as a minimum. For the truckers in the Czech Republic that is a 20 hour road journey from France while for the guy in Żebbuġ, it’s the road journey plus another five days at sea towards Malta.
The noble intention of EU rules in this case risks having a disproportionate impact on member states in the periphery and, double so, in case of islands like Malta and Cyprus.
Once the truckers take the hit, it will trickle down to many others in Malta. Let’s not forget that these freight companies normally make their trip north laden with Malta-produced goods.
One essential element of the European Commission’s proposal as agreed to provisionally by governments in the European Council is that a Maltese truck would be limited to a maximum of three unloads in any given country.
Such a rule may have a minimal impact for countries with large industries normally hiring a truck on their own.
Maltese hauliers, however, tend to group deliveries of up to 10 different consignments, necessitating several stops in destination countries.
Clearly, therefore, the rules will not only impact the trucking companies but will have a direct negative effect on our export capability. It is already hard for a Malta- based company to access the export-potential of the single market as is. These rules will make it even more difficult.
The trailers heading north come back laden with goods for Maltese retailers. As an MEP candidate I visited retailers, from Ħamrun to Sliema, who invariably see one major threat to their business right now and in the years to come – internet sales.
Undoubtedly, there is nothing holding back the magic of the internet, but we should not be insensitive to the need to keep our towns alive also by ensuring that our on-site retail shops can compete with the online offer. Should freight-prices to Malta hike up, our SMEs are poised to suffer another blow, also on the retail side.
The proposed rules could mean the end of a business model critical to a number of Maltese freight companies
Given the above context and the fact that the European Commission proposal was on the table since May 2017, you would have expected the Maltese authorities to have pitched Malta’s case in Brussels and managed to include sensible alternatives to achieve these European noble intentions.
It seems that this is not the case. From an analysis of all documentation available, it would seem that at no stage was the plight of Maltese hauliers put to the fore in Brussels.
Nothing appears in Council documents and no amendments in European Parliament committees. And yet, my informal contacts indicate that the negative impact of the Commission proposal was signalled by private operators to the local authorities as far back as 2018.
Transport Minister Ian Borg’s resolve to take the case to Brussels last week is nice to see but, when considers the amount of time wasted, such an initiative can only be received with scepticism.
The respective committee of the European Parliament and the Committee of Permanent Representatives in the Council of Ministers have already sealed a provisional deal on the rules. Changing them now will be very difficult.
Let’s hope the minister’s promise to truckers will bear fruit. He should ask the Maltese MEPs to help with this effort. MEP Roberta Metsola has already stated that she is ready to push the case in Brussels in the few weeks remaining before this goes to vote in plenary.
Should we succeed in this, we should consider it a lesson on how to move things in Brussels. Certainly not three years after the Commission proposal but way before that, and certainly not on our own but in coordination with all players, both in Malta and in Brussels.
Let us not compound our limited resources with a siege mentality when we pitch Malta’s interest in Brussels. Many sectors of our society and our economy stand to gain or lose depending on our ability to work together.
The government has the overriding responsibility to scout the horizon for developments and analyse their impact on the respective sectors.