Belgian an at weekends?
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• by Karen Miles UK lorry drivers will find themselves barred from another country at weekends if the Belgian government bans international movements.
The federal government is considering the imposition of a blanket ban on lorry movements on Sundays, and possibly Saturdays, in a move which would align it with many other European Union states, including France, Germany, Austria, Spain and Italy.
Transport Minister Isabelle Durant, a green member of Belgium's Conservative coalition government, told fellow European Union transport ministers of her intentions at their meeting last week in Luxembourg. Because a weekend ban is already in place in France, Belgium is attracting higher numbers of UK lorries reaching the Continent at weekends by using ferries hound for Zeebrugge and Ostend.
Ournat's announcement came as ministers failed to agree on how to move ahead on the planned European directive aimed at harmonising the maze of lorry bans throughout the EU's 15 member states. The EC wants to impose limits on weekend lorry bans so existing and new bans would be limited to Sundays.
France, which already bans lorry movements on Saturdays and Sundays, is strongly opposed to such a change.
The Freight Transport Association is disappointed by the move. Gordon Linington, the FTA's head of international affairs, says: "It will be most unfortunate if the Belgians ban weekend lorry movements because it is an alternative route for traffic avoiding the French ban.''