Explanatory Memorandum to COM(2022)363 - EU position in the Committee on Road Transport as regards the use of the Internal Market Information System (‘IMI’) by the United Kingdom and the contribution to its costs

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1. Subject matter of the proposal

The Commission proposes that the Council establishes the position to be taken on the Union's behalf in the Specialised Committee on Road Transport, established by the Trade and Cooperation Agreement between the European Union and the European Atomic Energy Community, of the one part, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, of the other part, as regards the participation of the United Kingdom in the administrative cooperation under Art. 6 of Section 2 of Part A of Annex 31 of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement, and the amount and modalities of the financial contribution to be made by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to the general budget of the Union in respect of the cost generated by its participation in the Internal Market Information System.

2. Context of the proposal

The Internal Market Information System (IMI) was established by Regulation (EU) No 1024/2012 1 . One of its functionalities allows the processing of posting declarations under the rules of Directive 96/71/EC, Directive 2014/67/EU and Directive (EU) 2020/1057. These rules aim at establishing a list of working conditions which posted workers must be granted in the host country. The Trade and Cooperation Agreement between the European Union and the United Kingdom (TCA) foresees in its Annex 31 (Article 6 i point (a) of Section 2 of Part A of that Annex) that operators established in one of the parties to the TCA should submit a posting declaration to the national competent authorities of the other Party or, in the case of the European Union, of the Member State to which the driver is posted. For this purpose, from 2 February 2022 a multilingual standard form of the public interface connected to the IMI has to be used.

Pursuant to Article 7(5) of Section 2 of Part A of Annex 31 of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement, the Specialised Committee on Road Transport should set the technical and procedural specifications of the use of the Internal Market Information System (IMI) by the United Kingdom. The proposed Decision of the Specialised Committee contains the necessary specifications in order to allow the connection of road operators and national authorities to the IMI. This will allow the operators to submit their posting declarations via the IMI and national authorities to take part in the administrative cooperation, which is necessary to reach the objectives of the rules on posting of drivers. These specifications have been adapted from Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2021/2179 2 to the TCA framework.

3. Position to be taken on the Union's behalf

The position of the Union should therefore be to support the adoption of a decision by the Specialised Committee on Road Transport, in line with the draft decision attached to this proposal.

4. Legal basis

Article 218(9) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) provides for Council decisions establishing ‘the positions to be adopted on the Union’s behalf in a body set up by an agreement, when that body is called upon to adopt acts having legal effects, with the exception of acts supplementing or amending the institutional framework of the agreement.’

The decision, which the Specialised Committee on Road Transport is called upon to adopt, constitutes an act having legal effects. The envisaged act does not supplement or amend the institutional framework of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement. Therefore, the procedural legal basis for the proposed decision is Article 218(9) TFEU.

5. Publication of the envisaged act

It is appropriate to publish the decision of the Specialised Committee on Road Transport in the Official Journal of the European Union after its adoption.