Driving licences and driving disqualifications

Key points

The EESC:

• Supports the objective of providing European Union drivers with a digital driving licence, which aims to put an end to differences and bureaucratic delays between the various Member States in processing applications from foreign drivers for exchanging foreign licences. This driving licence will be held on a mobile phone or any other digital device. However, the EESC hopes that paper-based driving licences will remain available to drivers who wish them. Furthermore, for reasons related to the digital inclusion of all age groups, the EESC recommends personalised and free training and coaching on using new digital driving licences.
• Takes note of the opportunity to allow young people to drive lorries accompanied from the age of 17. It also stresses the need to adapt the vocational training of lorry drivers and to improve working conditions and wages in order to make the job more attractive. It calls on the Commission to encourage employers to improve the situation by all means possible, such as strengthening training or raising awareness in the Member States.
• Would like the proposal for a directive on driving disqualifications to offer better safeguards against the risk of overlap with the area of cooperation in criminal matters. Indeed, the exchange of information on offences committed by drivers envisaged in the proposal is based on Article 91(1)(c) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) concerning the common transport policy, whereas the planned exchange of information between national authorities seems to relate more to criminal offences covered by the principles of police cooperation as laid down in Article 87 TFEU and judicial cooperation in criminal matters as laid down in Article 82 TFEU.