Bulgarian Truckers to Block Brussels Over New Rules

Bulgarian truck drivers will take to the streets in Brussels next week to voice their dismay about the so-called Mobility Package - a collection of three initiatives concerning the governance of commercial road transport in the European Union - which they say could leave them jobless.

The warning was announced on Friday by the head of the Union of International Hauliers in Bulgaria, Yordan Arabadzhiev.

"We all agree that not allowing the lobbyist sections of the Mobility-1 package is a national cause, a national interest," he said after a meeting of representatives of employers' associations on Friday.

The new rules concern truck drivers' postings, driving and rest times, access to the market and the use of a tachograph.

Some of these measures - especially the requirement that drivers spend their rest time in a hotel rather than in their cab, and travel back home every three weeks - also worry employers who say these rules will undermine the main competitive advantage of Eastern European hauliers - their price.

The January 10 date for the protest was selected by truckers to coincide with a upcoming vote in the European Parliament's transportation committee on the social and market aspects of the first section of the Mobility package.

"The clauses in the Mobility-1 package, approved by the Council of Ministers [on 4 December] mean that Bulgaria and all peripheral states won't survive," the head of the Association of the Bulgarian Enterprises for International Road Transport, AEBTRI, Georgi Petarneychev, told Focus Agency on Friday.

Drivers from Romania, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia and Poland will join the protest in Brussels, according to Arabadzhiev.

Haulier companies claim that the package, pushed through by France...