- Author(s):
- Parliamentary Assembly
- Origin
- See Doc. 4177, report of the Legal Affairs Committee. Text adopted by the Standing Committee, acting on behalf of the Assembly, on 7 July 1978.
- Thesaurus
The Assembly,
1. Considering that the achievement of greater communication among its members is one of the aims of the Council of Europe ;
2. Considering that it is in the interest of everyone to facilitate road traffic throughout the territories of the member states ;
3. Bearing in mind that the Council of Ministers of the European Communities is currently considering a proposal for a directive on a European driving licence, and that the ministers of transport of the members of the Communities, pending the adoption of such a driving licence, have reached agreement on the following two principles :
reciprocal recognition of national driving licences ;
the establishment of a community model for national driving licences, and that the general application of these principles in all member states of the Council of Europe would mark an essential step towards the object pursued by paragraph 2 above ;
4. Considering that the driving licence proposed for the European Communities is based on the model driving licence contained in the Convention on Road Traffic (Vienna 1968), and that the same model might well be used by all Council of Europe member states ;
5. Considering that, in the event of the directive being adopted in its present form, the Council of Ministers of the European Communities must, within five years of its adoption :
adopt all measures necessary for the compilation of a central register of drivers in which all offences other than ones punishable by fine or fixed penalty without formal proceedings shall be recorded ;
adopt uniform rules for the objective assessment of offences by means of a numerical scale relating to their gravity, and for the determination of the circumstances in which driving licences may be suspended, withdrawn or restored ;
6. Recalling that the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe adopted :
a Convention on the Punishment of Road Traffic Offences (1964) ;
a Resolution on the deprivation of the right to drive a motor vehicle (Resolution (71) 28) ;
a Resolution on punishment of road traffic offences committed whilst driving a vehicle under the influence of alcohol (Resolution (73) 7) ;
a Convention on the International Effects of Deprivation of the Right to drive a Motor Vehicle (1976) ;
a Resolution on hit-and-run offences (Resolution (77) 29) ;
7. Fearing that an unnecessary duplication of effort may result from the work undertaken within the European Communities and the Council of Europe ;
8. Convinced that uniform European rules on driving licences and road traffic offences should apply to the largest possible number of European states,
9. Expresses the wish that the governments of the member states of the Council of Europe should, when continuing their work on road traffic matters, including driving licences and offences, ensure that their co-ordination is widespread and efficient
