ECR Group MEPs have today met in Brussels with transport ministers from Bulgaria, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland to discuss the EU's controversial Mobility Package.

During the last parliamentary term a small majority of MEPs endorsed the package during a vote. It also sharply divided Member States, predominantly along East-West divisions, and was rejected by 10 countries within the Council of Ministers. When announced the Package was originally claimed to necessary to improve the working conditions of truck drivers throughout the EU, however if approved its clauses would reintroduce barriers within the single market. It would do this by putting in place rules that restrict international transport services which would exclude hauliers from operating cross border.

The ECR have always the European Parliament’s leading voice in support of the EU’s single market and Group Vice-Chair and Transport spokesman, Roberts Zile, said after the meeting:

“The Single Market is held up as a great success of the EU but the Mobility Package would drive a wedge right through it. Some countries like the single market when they can freely export their cars and vehicles but seem to like it a loss less when it works the other ways. It’s a double standard and we cannot accept regressive and protectionist measures that are designed purely to thwart cross border operators.”