Ministers agreed on a general approach as regards a new regulation on the tachograph used in road transport. The general approach does not retain the Commission's proposal to incorporate a microchip with the driver card functionalities into the driving licence for professional drivers.

The Council agreed on a general approach with regard to the tachograph regulation at the meeting of the General Affairs Council celebrated in Luxembourg on 26 of June. The aim of the new regulation is to make fraud more difficult and to reduce the administrative burden by making full use of new technologies and introducing a number of new regulatory measures. The Commission proposed new rules for the tachograph in July 2011.

The key elements of the general approach are, regarding to the use of technology, that in order to reduce costs, only positioning services free of fees will be used. The current manual recording of the location of the vehicle will be replaced by automated recording through satellite positioning. In addition, remote communication from the tachograph providing basic information on compliance will allow for early detection of possible manipulation or misuse, thereby enabling officers to target roadside checks better and avoid unnecessary checks. Moreover, the tachograph may be equipped with an interface facilitating its integration into Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS), subject to certain conditions.

With regard to the regulatory changes, they include stricter requirements for workshops responsible for installing and calibrating tachographs. In order to cut the administrative burden, the exemption from the obligation to use tachographs, which member states may grant to certain users - mainly small and medium-sized enterprises - will be extended: for those users, the new draft regulation introduces an exemption for transport operations within a radius of 100 km, whilst hitherto the exemption has been limited to 50 km in certain cases. The European Parliament is expected to adopt its position at first reading in early July.