When a carrier from an EU Member State transports goods between two points within the borders of another Member State, this is cabotage. Carriers must have a Community license and are allowed to drive a maximum of three cabotage journeys before crossing the border again. The Federal Office for Freight Transport (BAG) detected cabotage violations in 30 cases of the controls.
Individual checks were carried out in the immediate vicinity of the factories of car manufacturers and suppliers in Baden-Württemberg and in the immediate vicinity of large logistics and mail order companies. According to the BAG, the agents checked a total of 597 vehicles for compliance with the cabotage rules, of which 106 trucks have actually made cabotage trips. With 30 violations, the score percentage was just over 28 percent.
There are strict rules attached to a domestic journey in another EU Member State with a Dutch truck. Cabotage may only be performed after the international journey has been fully unloaded and a maximum of three cabotage operations may be performed within a maximum of seven days after the international journey has been unloaded. Driving into another EU country empty and then carrying out cabotage is therefore not allowed.
For the sake of clarity: the nationality of the driver or carrier does not play a role in determining whether a transport is classified as a cabotage journey. Only the nationality of the euro permit is decisive. So a Polish driver, employed in the Netherlands, who drives with a Dutch registered tractor unit and Dutch Euro license and carries out transports in the Netherlands, does not do cabotage.
Cabotage was banned in the EU until 1993, after 1993 there have been various arrangements to allow this transport on a limited scale. Since May 2010, an EU-wide scheme applies to all member states. Since the enlargement of the EU in 2004 and 2007 to include the former Eastern European countries, cabotage has been under severe pressure. The increasing socio-economic differences between the old and new EU member states mean that many Western European member states want to further limit cabotage.
