Spain is not violating any European legislation by imposing the stoppage, because there is no European law on the matter, since it is an issue that is not regulated by the EU. This is how the European Commission has responded emphatically to several Spanish conservative and ultra MEPs who have organized a hearing in the European Parliament on this issue – the requirement that cars, vans, buses and trucks have had since January to carry this device so that the vehicle is easily traceable in the event of an accident – despite the fact that several commissioners had already given them the same response in writing.
The European Executive has taken advantage of the session to assess Spanish efforts in terms of road safety, with the representative of the Commission in charge of giving the reply to the MEPs declaring Spain “EU road safety champion”, for having managed to go from 10,000 road victims annually in the 1990s to 800 in 2024. “Compared to what happens in the EU, in Spain there are 35 victims per million inhabitants, while The EU average is 44”, highlighted the representative of the European Commission.
“As for evaluating compliance with European law, there is no European law that covers these devices,” the envoy explained to the hearing held in the Petitions Committee of the European Parliament. “European legislation has not been infringed,” he added emphatically, since the Spanish authorities “have resorted to the prerogative granted to them by the Vienna Convention on road traffic and which allows them to define a new device,” he concluded.
The Petitions Commission, a kind of citizen service window to which in recent years the Popular Party and the ultra forces have frequently gone to attack the Government of Pedro Sánchez, held a hearing this Thursday dedicated to analyzing three petitions on the “compatibility” of the regulations on Spanish light beacons with European law. None of the petitioners have appeared in the room where the hearing was held, also largely unpopulated by MEPs. Only a dozen legislators showed up, most of them Spanish, like the popular Elena Nevado, Juan Carlos Girauta, from Vox, Alvise Pérez (Se Acabó la Fiesta) and the now independent—and formerly of Alvise’s group—Diego Solier (ECR), who charged against the Spanish measure that was defended alone by the socialist Sandra Gómez, who in turn reproached them for “making a political battle of anything.”
The Commission’s reply, although it has visibly left the MEPs who were clamoring for a condemnation or at least a European review of the beacon visibly livid, should not come as any surprise. On at least three occasions the European Executive has responded in a similar way to written questions from PP MEPs about the beacon.
Already in March of last year, to a parliamentary question from the popular Borja Giménez Larraz, the Transport Commissioner, Apostolos Tzitzikostas, reminded him that “traffic rules and provisions on parking and stopping in general, and on the signaling devices that motor vehicles must carry in particular, are not regulated by the EU.” To another similar question from Elena Nevado sent in May, the Greek commissioner, from the family of the European People’s Party (EPP), repeated his answer from months ago. Despite this, the PP tried again with another question to the Commission in December, this time questioning the “repercussions on the single market of the V-16”, as MEP Dolors Montserrat, vice-president of the Petitions Committee, wrote. The answer came last week from the vice-president of the Commission for Industrial Strategy and Prosperity, Stéphane Sejourné, who also indicated: “The use of hazard signaling devices is not harmonized at EU level and, instead, the national traffic rules of the Member States apply.”
However, in his turn to respond this Thursday, Nevado highlighted that Sejourné had left a loophole open by indicating that “imposing specific technical requirements on the device at the national level may constitute a measure with an effect equivalent to a restriction on trade in the internal market (…) that the Spanish authorities would have to justify”, although the Frenchman has not expressed any intention of opening that path.
Despite new claims from the Commission about its lack of competence over the beacons, Petitions Chairman Bogdan Rzonca of the ultra-Polish party PiS has decided to keep petitions open.
