Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2017/1440 of 8 August 2017 amending Implementing Regulation (EU) 2016/480 establishing common rules concerning the interconnection of national electronic registers on road transport undertakings (Text with EEA relevance. )

THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION,

Having regard to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union,

Having regard to Regulation (EC) No 1071/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 October 2009 establishing common rules concerning the conditions to be complied with to pursue the occupation of road transport operator and repealing Council Directive 96/26/EC (1), and in particular Article 16(5) thereof,

Whereas:

(1) Article 16(1) of Regulation (EC) No 1071/2009 requires the Member States to keep a national electronic register of road transport undertakings that have been authorised by a competent authority to engage in the occupation of road transport operator.

(2) Article 16(5) and (6) of Regulation (EC) No 1071/2009 provide for all the national electronic registers to be interconnected by 31 December 2012, and mandate the Commission to adopt common rules concerning such interconnection.

(3) The Commission adopted Regulation (EU) No 1213/2010 (2), in order to make possible the interconnection of the national electronic registers requested by Regulation (EC) No 1071/2009, through an electronic message exchange system called ERRU (European Registers of Road Transport Undertakings).

(4) Regulation (EU) No 1213/2010 has been repealed by Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2016/480 (3) in order to set up an enhanced version of ERRU by 30 January 2019.

(5) ERRU consists of two parallel architectures regarding the exchange of messages between Member States. The first one is based on a central hub managed by the Commission. This central hub centralises the data traffic by collecting the messages sent by Member States and forwarding them subsequently to the Member States to which the messages are addressed. Alternatively, Member States may choose to use a compatible commercial network to exchange messages directly amongst themselves (peer-to-peer configuration), without those messages going through the central hub.

(6) Given that messages exchanged directly between Member States are not routed through the central hub, eventual system faults related to those messages go unnoticed to the Commission; the Commission is therefore unable to fulfil its role as general manager of ERRU by taking the corresponding corrective action, which consequently jeopardizes the good performance of the whole system.

(7) The peer-to-peer configuration does not allow the Commission to have timely access to information on the volume and characteristics of the messages exchanged; it is not possible therefore for the Commission to have an overall view on the usage of ERRU, information that is useful for future improvements of the system.

(8) The problems encountered with the peer-to-peer configuration make it necessary to ensure that all messages exchanged in the framework of ERRU are routed through the central hub, and thus remove this possibility from the scope of Implementing Regulation (EU) 2016/480.

(9) Furthermore, some minor additions and changes in Implementing Regulation (EU) 2016/480 have to be made in order to address the following aspects in a more precise and clearer manner: the procedure for connection to ERRU, the tests to be performed and the consequences of failure, the content of some XML messages, the definition of the escalation procedure to be followed by Member States in case of system errors, and the time that personal data can be retained in the logs of the central hub. Consequently, Implementing Regulation (EU) 2016/480 should be amended accordingly.

(10) The measures provided for in this Regulation are adopted in accordance with the advisory procedure set out in Article 4 of Regulation (EU) No 182/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council (4),

HAS ADOPTED THIS REGULATION:

Article 1

In Article 3 of Implementing Regulation (EU) 2016/480, the following paragraph is added:

‘The connection to ERRU of a Member State shall be considered to be established after the completion of the connection, integration and performance tests in accordance with the instructions and under the supervision of the Commission. The maximum duration of the tests shall be six months. The Commission shall take measures in case of failure of the above-mentioned tests. If those measures prove insufficient, the Commission may withdraw the testing support until the Member State proves that sufficient progress has been made at national level regarding connection to ERRU’;

Article 2

Annexes I, III, VI, VII and VIII to Implementing Regulation (EU) 2016/480 are amended in accordance with the Annex to this Regulation.

Article 3

This Regulation shall enter into force on the twentieth day following that of its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union.

This Regulation shall be binding in its entirety and directly applicable in all Member States.

Done at Brussels, 8 August 2017.

For the Commission The President Jean-Claude JUNCKER

(1) OJ L 300, 14.11.2009, p. 51.

(2) Commission Regulation (EU) No 1213/2010 of 16 December 2010 establishing common rules concerning the interconnection of national electronic registers on road transport undertakings (OJ L 335, 18.12.2010, p. 21).

(3) Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2016/480 of 1 April 2016 establishing common rules concerning the interconnection of national electronic registers on road transport undertakings and repealing Regulation (EU) No 1213/2010 (OJ L 87, 2.4.2016, p. 4).

(4) Regulation (EU) No 182/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 February 2011 laying down the rules and general principles concerning mechanisms for control by Member States of the Commission's exercise of implementing powers (OJ L 55, 28.2.2011, p. 13).