COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION,update

Economic and Financial Affairs Council 12/03/2024 | Event Economic and Financial Affairs Council Main results of the Economic and Financial Affairs Council concern social investments and reforms, recovery and resilience facility, Russia's aggression against Ukraine, G20 follow-up, EU budget, financial services and EU-Switzerland relations. Press material Tuesday 12 March 2024   ● Council of the EU   12/03/2024 23:13 | Press release | Road safety: Council and European Parliament strike a deal for better cooperation on road-safety-related traffic offences   To ensure safer road traffic across Europe, the Council presidency and European Parliament’s negotiators reached a provisional agreement on a proposal amending the 2015 directive on cross-border exchange of information on road-safety-related traffic offences. The new legislation forms part of the so-called ‘road safety’ legislative package. "Stricter and more efficient rules on enforcing penalties for traffic offences, including violations of vehicle access restrictions, will improve safety on European motorways and guarantee safer and greener residential areas across the EU. The revised legislation also ensures equal treatment for all EU drivers irrespectively of their nationality. We are delighted for having reached a quick agreement with the European Parliament on this file." Georges Gilkinet, Belgian minister for mobility Main elements of the new legislation The revised directive aims to ensure that non-resident drivers respect the traffic rules when driving in other EU member states. The general thrust of the Commission proposal was retained by the provisional agreement. The co-legislators introduced, however, several changes to the proposal, mainly aiming to clarify the scope and the definitions of the legal act. These entail amongst others: introducing the concept of the ‘person concerned’ and clarifying the roles and responsibilities of the national contact points and the competent authorities adding more offences to the revised legislation, such as cases of not respecting vehicle access restrictions, or rules at a railway level-crossing, crossing a solid line, dangerous overtaking, dangerous parking, wrong-way driving, use of overloaded vehicles, as well as hit-and-run cases further clarification of the different procedures related to accessing vehicle registration data and the different options for competent authorities to ask mutual assistance with a view to making sure that the person concerned is identified and that the traffic offence notice arrives to the right place within a reasonable time frame all necessary safeguards put in place to protect the fundamental rights of the driver or any other person concerned, including by setting a clear framework to ban any abuse by private entities involved in the process of road-safety traffic offences, and better mechanisms for the protection of personal data. Next steps Today’s provisional agreement must be endorsed by the Council and the European Parliament before formal adoption of the legislative act. From the Council’s side, the Belgian presidency intends to submit the compromise text to the member states’ representatives (Coreper) for approval as soon as possible. Once approved, the text will be submitted to a legal/linguistic review before being formally adopted by both co-legislators, published in the EU’s Official Journal, and entering into force 20 days after this publication. Member states will have 30 months to transpose the provisions of the revised directive into their national legislation. Background information In its EU road safety policy framework 2021-2030, the Commission recommitted to the ambitious aim to get close to zero deaths and zero serious injuries on EU roads by 2050 (“Vision Zero”), as well as to the medium-term goal to reduce deaths and serious injuries by 50% by 2030. However, road fatalities were up 4% last year from 2021, according to latest Commission data. This is still 9 % below pre-pandemic level, but the pace of improvement is not sufficient to reach the above-mentioned goals. The proposal in question form part of the ‘road safety package’, adopted by the Commission on 1 March 2023, which also comprises a new regime for driving licences and a new proposal on driver disqualifications, where a disqualification in a member state leads to follow-up action of the member state which issued the driving licence. On 2 June 2023, the Transport Council took note of a progress report and on 4 December 2023 adopted a general approach on this file. Kosma Zlotowski (ECR/PL) is the European Parliament’s rapporteur and two trilogues took place on 14 December 2023 and 6 February 2024 in Strasbourg. Directive on cross-border enforcement of road-safety-related traffic offences, Council’s general approach, 4 December 2023 Directive on cross-border exchange of information on road-safety-related traffic offences, Council’s progress report, 2 June 2023 Directive on cross-border exchange of information on road-safety-related traffic offences, Commission’s proposal, 1 May 2023 Press material Tuesday 12 March 2024   ● Council of the EU   12/03/2024 15:40 | Press release | Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine: EU individual sanctions over territorial integrity prolonged for a further six months   The Council decided today to prolong the restrictive measures targeting those responsible for undermining or threatening the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine for another six months, until 15 September 2024. The existing restrictive measures provide for travel restrictions for natural persons, the freezing of assets, and a ban on making funds or other economic resources available to the listed individuals and entities. Sanctions will continue to apply to over 2100 individuals and entities, many of which are targeted in response to Russia’s ongoing unjustified and unprovoked military aggression against Ukraine. In the context of the sanctions' review, the Council also decided not to renew the listings of three individuals and remove nine deceased persons from the list. After 24 February 2022, in response to Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine, the EU massively expanded sanctions against Russia with the aim of significantly weakening Russia's economic base, depriving it of critical technologies and markets, and significantly curtailing its ability to wage war. On 14 and 15 December 2023, the European Council adopted conclusions in which it reiterated its resolute condemnation of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, which constitutes a manifest violation of the Charter of the United Nations, and reaffirmed the EU’s unwavering support for Ukraine’s independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognised borders and its inherent right of self-defence against Russia’s aggression. The European Council also stated that Russia’s ability to wage its war of aggression must be further weakened, including by further strengthening sanctions, and through their full and effective implementation and the prevention of their circumvention. Russia: two years after the full-scale invasion and war of aggression against Ukraine, EU adopts 13th package of individual and economic sanctions (press release, 23 February 2024) EU response to Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine (background information)