Improve working conditions for truck drivers and end distortion of competition in road transport. To that end, the European Parliament last year approved a package of revised rules: the Mobility Package. In September last year, the first measures entered into force. From that date, for example, there was an organizational requirement for employers to allow drivers to return home every three or four weeks, and the prohibition on taking normal weekly rest in the cab was explicitly(er) emphasized.

From February next year, a second package of measures will come into force. The new rules relate in particular to posting, the use of the tachograph, establishment requirements, the obligation to return the vehicle and cabotage. Especially the latter is currently the subject of much controversy, because with the "cooling off" period of four days and the abolition of the exception for intermodal transport, British conditions could be on the horizon in the European Union as well, with distressing shortages of trucks and drivers and fuel stations running dry and shelves empty.

UK inflation figures also indicate that life in the UK is rapidly becoming more expensive. Through a host of emergency measures, including the issuing of five thousand temporary work permits to foreign truck drivers and the stretching of cabotage rides for foreign drivers (unlimited cabotage within a two-week time frame), the British government hopes to see full shelves in stores soon, when the holiday season arrives again.

Incidentally, I myself doubt whether the same logistical problems will actually arise in the EU when the second package of measures soon enters into force. However, I do worry about the practical effects of, among other things, the new cabotage rules and the abolition of exceptions for intermodal transport, especially for our small country. Transport will soon be a lot less efficient.

The so-called "white plates," which account for much of the (intermodal) container traffic from the Port of Rotterdam, will soon be unable to be used for this work, or used less. Who will do this work soon then? The Dutch driver? Or the foreign driver driving for a Dutch transport company? I see the latter happening in practice, albeit sparsely. Transport companies currently based in Eastern Europe are increasingly orienting themselves towards the Western European market. They are doing so as transport companies, but also as temporary employment agencies. On the one hand to avoid falling under the cabotage rules, but on the other hand because they do not see how they will soon have to return to their home countries with their vehicles every eight weeks.

This westward migration will undoubtedly affect the Dutch transportation market. Transport is becoming more expensive. Especially if the new secondment rules also come into effect soon. On the other hand, competition will also increase, although I wonder whether the reduced supply will soon be completely filled by new companies settling here. In the short term at least, I do not expect that to happen, and with that there will soon be a task for the government to respond to the practical consequences of the Mobility Package 2.0. Let's hope they will get ahead of the English states.

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