7th Symposium of Lawyers - Isabelle Bon-Garcin

“Diversity of controls and sanctions in goods road transport: helping your hauliers through the maze of unharmonised applications”

Introduction by the President of the Symposium

Isabelle Bon-Garcin, President of the IRU Commission on Legal Affairs

Ladies, Gentlemen,

It is now my pleasure to explain what will take place at this Symposium. It has been divided into 4 modules, each one concerning a different aspect of carriage of goods by road.

At the end of each module, time has been allotted for discussion. I hope you will all take the opportunity to intervene.

The moderator for this morning’s discussions is Mr. Sanchez-Gamborino, Vice President of the IRU Commission of Legal Affairs and legal advisor for the Spanish International Road Transport Association. This afternoon’s discussion will be led by Mr. Marques, Secretary General of the Portuguese National Association of Transport of Goods by Road.

As Mr. de Pretto has told us, the participants here at our Symposium come from areas that are very different from each other: some are from EU countries, such as Germany, France, Italy and Hungary, while others come from countries in the Community of Independent States, Russia and Kazakhstan, and others, for example, from Turkey. There is also a broad spectrum of profiles, some of you are lawyers, others academics, and some of you work in businesses or organisations connected with international transport of goods.

Such diversity is, of course, a positive factor in as far as expressing ourselves here, however diversity is less positive in relation to today’s topic: the application of monitoring measures and sanctions that concern road transporters.

The Resolution submitted to us today by the IRU Commission of Legal Affairs will make it possible to assure a follow-up of the discussions at this Symposium, and, as does Mr. de Pretto, I also hope I can count on your full support for this document. I shall come back to it at the end of our various discussions.

Let’s now go on to our first module, which deals with the conditions for access to the road transport profession.

Mr. Lokhov, Deputy Head of the TIR System and of the Department of Transit Systems of the  ASMAP, the Russian Association of International Road Transporters, now has the floor.

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