Harmonised rules for dangerous goods transport

01-05-2007: The European Commission has proposed to harmonise the rules for the transport of dangerous goods by making them as user-friendly as possible. The new proposal integrates the existing rules into one piece of EU law, which covers all three land transport modes: road, rail and inland waterway. It contributes thereby to the Commission's strategic objective of legislative simplification.

The EU law on transport of dangerous goods already covers road and rail transport, but in many separate, partly outdated sets of rules, which the proposal recasts into one set of rules only. For citizens, transport operators and national authorities the new format is much easier to understand and apply than the current one.

The proposal also covers inland waterway transport, for which no EU rules currently exist. Even if being the smallest mode in volume, an accident in inland waterways might have serious consequences and an extensive impact. One single set of rules for all inland waterway transport of dangerous goods reduces this risk.