Transport companies involved in oversize loads are faced with ‘vast amounts of bureaucratic hassle and a maze of permit requirements’ within the European Union, says Dutch MEP Caroline Nagtegaal (VVD). She has asked the European Commission whether the digitisation of the process for granting licenses for
regular road transport has been planned for this market segment as well.

Nagtegaal also wants to know whether the European Commission is taking any other actions to reduce bureaucracy and simplify the licensing process for the transport of oversize loads.

The VVD politician, who is part of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe in the European Parliament, has encountered an additional problem regarding oversize loads: regional authorities are becoming increasingly more reluctant to grant permits, supposedly because they are concerned that their roads and bridges are not able to cope with the burden of these oversize loads. “This while a lot of European infrastructure is actually being strengthened to also accommodate heavy military vehicles.”

For the first time, funds (6.5 billion euros) have been earmarked for civil-military transport infrastructure in the Connecting Europe Facility for Trans-European Transport Networks (TEN-T) for 2021-2027.

Nagtegaal wants these investments to also benefit the carriers of heavy and oversize loads: “Could the Commission also take into account the issue of oversize load transport during the negotiations of the CEF programme regarding military transport?”, she asks.