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Hauliers that specialise in milk collection will be relieved to
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learn that the European Parliament has voted for a €300m (£270m) funding boost to save the crisis-ridden dairy industry, which has been afflicted by plummeting prices.
Final approval must be given by the Council of Ministers when it meets this month, but the funding has been agreed in principle.
Legislative measures backed by MEPs enable the European Commission to adopt countermeasures quickly in the event of serious market disturbances in the dairy sector. The provision remains in place until 2010. The powers would enable the EC to fund private storage of products such as cheese.
Hauliers in the dairy sector depend on a unique market where many collect milk from farms 365 days a year, using specialist tankers. The collapse of this sector would leave such hauliers struggling to find replacement work.
"There is genuine anger among many that the EC has backtracked on what it says was always intended to be a temporary opt-out..."
In the meantime, thousands of owner-drivers are free to carry on, untroubled by the Road Transport Directive, but governed, like all HGV drivers, by EU drivers' hours rules
Predicting the future
There is genuine anger among many MEPs that the EC has backtracked on what it says was always intended to be a temporary opt-out of a regulation designed to limit the working time of all HGV drivers.
No-one can predict what the new report will say, but the EC's insistence that it is only desirable to bring the false self-employed into scope may he no match for MEPs' fears that leaving anyone out undermines road safety and fairness. m