Date: 12-05-11
On 11, 12 and 13 May the annual Plenary EReg Board Meeting & Annual Conference was held in Warsaw, Poland. Given the strong representation from the European Commission, the number of registration authorities present and the interesting program, it can truly be said that European cooperation is getting increasingly professional through EReg.
The 27 members of EReg gathered to share experiences and knowledge about various current topics in the field of vehicle registration and information exchange. The EReg Plenary Board Meeting was opened by the Secretary of State of the Ministry of Infrastructure of Poland. During the Plenary Board Meeting, the "matters of the association" were discussed. The subsequent EReg Annual Conference gave room to 18 interesting presentations. This year the presentations were divided into 4 clusters: "Road Safety", "International Data Exchange," Re-registration of vehicles" and "Vehicle Documents and Driving Licenses". See below a short description of the most important developments in these clusters.
Another part of the Annual Conference were the presentations of the results of three EReg Topic Groups, namely Topic Group V on Smartcard Registration Documents, Topic Group IX on CO2 Data Monitoring and Topic Group X on Driving Licence Tourism. The final reports of these Topic Groups provide valuable recommendations and advice for the European Commission and the European countries.
Cluster 1 - Increase road safety
Walter Nissler (European Commission) opened the conference with a presentation on current road safety developments at the European Commission. In addition to his presentation, the Secretariat EReg presented an analysis of the impact of the "Road Safety Policy Guidelines" on the registration authorities in Europe. Especially the strengthening of (cross border) enforcement of traffic laws, the harmonization of the MOT and the use of modern technologies (such as ITS and eCall) are issues that EReg will continue to follow.
Cluster 2 - Enhancing reregistration
One of the main topics at the moment is the re-registration of vehicles in Europe. Already in 2008, an EReg Topic Group led by Germany started working on alinging the processes of the Member States, for example by sending notifications in the event of a re-registration. Recently, the European Commission launched an initiative for new legislation to adress issues with re-registration. The European Commission called on EReg members to actively think about possible improvements, also by responding to the Public Consultation and Impact Assessment that are currently running on this subject.
Cluster 3 - More international data exchange
The growth in international data exchange and use of EUCARIS is an always recurring and important issue within the framework of registration and information exchange. The European Commission agreed on the possibility to use EUCARIS for the exchange within RESPER (driving license information), ERRU (transport undertakers), TACHOnet (tachograph cards) and eCall. The European Commission is working on plans for the realization of a so-called Vehicle Administrative Platform for the exchange of information on MOT and CoC's. The opinion of the EReg members is that it would be a shame to set up a (new) central database instead of using the existing technology of EUCARIS.
Cluster 4 - Smarter Documents
The evolution from paper to plastic documents (with or without a chip) is growing in Europe. This applies not only to driving licences, but now also for the registration documents. Both Slovakia and Austria have a smart card registration document and in the Netherlands this is scheduled for in 2013. The results of EReg Topic Group V showed that all countries have made different choices regarding the implementation of the smart card vehicle registration document. A revision of the current European Directive and harmonization of the ISO standards is therefore necessary to make sure that developments in the EU Member States are in line with each other.