Geneva, 23 April 1999
ECE/TRANS/99/3
COUNTRIES IN
SOUTH EASTERN EUROPE TO LIBERALIZE
INTERNATIONAL ROAD TRANSPORT
At a Conference in Athens to be
held on 28 April 1999, Ministers of Transport of Albania, Bosnia
and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia*, Greece, Hungary, Republic of
Moldova, Romania, Slovenia, The former Yugoslav Republic of
Macedonia, and Turkey are expected to sign a Memorandum of
Understanding (MoU) to facilitate and liberalize international
road transport of goods in South Eastern Europe.
The Conference will be hosted by
the Government of Greece in the framework of the Southeast
European Cooperative Initiative (SECI) which was launched in
December 1996 as a support mechanism for the Dayton Peace
Agreement. The main objective of SECI is to encourage cooperation
among its participating States and to facilitate their
integration into European structures. This initiative is being
supported by Austria, Italy, the Russian Federation, Switzerland
and the United States of America.
The Memorandum of Understanding
(MoU) has been prepared by the SECI Project Group on Border
Crossing Facilitation, chaired by Mr. Y. Maniatis,
Secretary-General at the Greek Ministry of Transport and
Communications with substantive assistance by the Transport
Division of the UN/ECE secretariat.
The MoU addresses the most
urgent problems and deficiencies of international road transport
and trade in South Eastern Europe, which are not only due to a
lack of adequate infrastructure, but also due to complex border
crossing procedures and other institutional, regulatory and
economic barriers.
The MoU foresees therefore that
the following measures are taken by the SECI participating
States:
Progressive
liberalization towards a quota free regime for bilateral
and transit road transport. In particular and as a short
term measure, quota should be abolished by the end of
2000 for all lorries complying with specific
environmental and safety standards ("green" and "greener and safer" lorries) established by the European
Conference of Ministers of Transport (ECMT);
Accession by all SECI
participating States to 16 important multilateral
conventions and agreements established by the UN/ECE
providing for harmonized legal and administrative rules
for international road transport in Europe;
Harmonization of
national requirements for maximum permissible weights and
dimensions of lorries with those applicable in the
European Community (EC) and introduction of an
international lorry weight certificate to avoid
repetitive weighing at border crossings;
Harmonization of
charging policies for international road transport,
including tolls and road user charges, in line with
commonly acceptable European principles;
Establishment of a data
bank, also accessible to the transport industry,
providing accurate and up-to-date information on all
charges related to the use of the national road network
by foreign operators;
Introduction of
procedures to facilitate the granting of visa for
professional drivers engaged in international road
transport.
The SECI participating States
also stress in the MoU that tangible solutions to the common
regional problems identified in the MoU require a new and
innovative approach in a regional co-operative framework.
Therefore, the MoU stipulates that its provisions should be
included, by the end of 2002, into existing or yet to be
concluded bilateral road transport agreements. In this way the
commitments made in the MoU will become national law and will
become enforceable in the SECI participating States. At the end
of this process of close regional cooperation in this field, it
is foreseen that a multilateral framework agreement on road
transport will be concluded covering all SECI participating
States.
In order not to loose momentum
of this initiative and to ensure adequate monitoring of the
provisions of the MoU, it is also foreseen in the MoU to
establish a Regional Road Transport Committee composed of
representatives of all SECI participating States. The first
meeting of this new Committee is planned to be held in 1999 in
Greece. The Transport Division of the UN/ECE secretariat will
provide initially technical support and secretariat services to
the Committee.
The SECI Project Group on Border
Crossing Facilitation is hosted by Greece and aims at simplifying
border crossing procedures in the region, focussing on the
transport of goods. Further to the preparation of the MoU, this
Project Group has already prepared earlier a 70 US$ million loan
proposal to the World Bank to improve infrastructures at border
crossings in the region that has led the Bank adopting a new
regional approach to lending. So-called APRO Committees@ have also been established in the participating
States bringing together Government authorities and the private
sector to facilitate export and import procedures.
SECI also works in the fields of
transport infrastructure development, energy efficiency as well
as natural gas and electricity interconnections. Each of the
projects undertaken in the framework of SECI is hosted by one of
the participating States. Technical assistance to SECI is
provided by the secretariat of the United Nations Economic
Commission for Europe (UN/ECE) based in Geneva.
More detailed information on
SECI and on the Project Group on Border Crossing Facilitation,
including the draft text of the MoU may be obtained from the
UN/ECE Web site on SECI (www.unece.org/seci).
Additional information
may also be obtained directly from:
Mr. Martin Magold
Chief, Border Crossing
Facilitation Section
UN/ECE Transport
Division
or
Mr. Will Keenan
Regional Adviser
UN/ECE Trade Division
United Nations Economic
Commission for Europe (UN/ECE)
Palais des Nations
CH - 1211 Geneva 10
Tel: (+41 22) 917 24 53
(Mr. Magold)
Tel: (+41 22) 917 27 93
(Mr. Keenan)
Fax: (+41 22) 917 00 39
E-mail: [email protected]
[email protected]