Goods: distribution of permits for heavy goods vehicles travelling in Switzerland

This Regulation aims to establish a Community distribution system for permits for Member States heavy goods vehicles travelling in Switzerland.

ACT

Council Regulation (EC) No 2888/2000 of the European Parliament of 18 December 2000 on the distribution of permits for heavy goods vehicles travelling in Switzerland.

SUMMARY

On 20 November 2000, the Swiss Confederation decided to grant permits to heavy goods vehicles, of a maximum of 34 tonnes, to travel in Switzerland from 1 January 2001 onwards and also to increase the number of permits granted for heavy vehicles (whose total laden weight exceeds 34 tonnes but is not more than 40 tonnes) and for unladen vehicles or those laden with lightweight goods. This Decision is accompanied by the introduction of the LSVA (Capacity-linked levy on heavy goods vehicles) in Switzerland.

However, this Swiss autonomous measure cannot be considered as provisional application of the agreement between the European Community and Switzerland regarding the transport of goods and passengers by rail and road, signed on 21 June 1999, which is currently being ratified.

As a result, and pending the agreement's final entry into force, provision has been made to apply standards along with the current regulation, standards governing the distribution and management of the permits made available to the Community by the Swiss Decision from 1 January 2001.

From this date onwards, the regulation thus establishes the following arrangements for the issue of permits to the Community by Switzerland:

• from 2001 and in 2002, 300 000 "heavy vehicles" permits will be distributed each year between the 15 Member States, in accordance with the percentage defined in Annex I, and in 2003 and 2004, this will increase to 400 000;
• from 2001 to 2004, 220 000 "unladen vehicle" permits will be distributed each year (Annex II).

The regulation also details the Community permit distribution method for both heavy and unladen vehicles (Annex III). This is based on the objective criteria of transport operations leaving, entering or travelling in Switzerland and to other destinations, with a minimum of 1 500 permits for each Member State.

The regulation also provides for the establishment of statistics on the flow of heavy goods vehicle traffic in the Alpine region, on the basis of which the Commission will revise the number of permits allotted if numbers differ significantly from the percentage provided for in the Annex.

It is the Member States' responsibility to distribute the permits they have for their countries to the transport undertakings that require them in an objective and non-discriminatory manner.

In order to ensure optimum use of permits, any permits not used by 15 September each year will be returned to the Commission who will redistribute them to other Member States.

A committee composed of representatives from the Member States and headed by the Commission representative has been created in order to be able to modify the distribution of permits.

Last updated: 03.09.2007