Geneva – In light of the menacing escalation of security regulations and legislation being developed in an uncoordinated manner by the EU, WCO, UN, ECMT, ISO, CEN and other bodies, the IRU Transport Councils today warned against the resulting chaos hampering trade and tourism, thus economic development.

Janusz Lacny, IRU Vice President and President of the Goods Transport Council said: “The proliferation of unco-ordinated Security rules are overlapping and contradicting each other! Transport operators will be lost in a jungle of over-regulation, which will only increase transport costs and penalise the economy, without achieving the objective of increasing security! Such a situation should by all means be avoided. For example, one cannot have several definitions and application schemes of one of the key security measures featured in a number of regulations, namely the creation of the category of the so called “Authorised Economic Operator” (AEO).”

Francesco Pacifico, IRU Vice President and President of the Passenger Transport Council added “Over-regulation will also cause disturbances in tourism. Therefore, following the example of the IRU road freight security guidelines, the passenger transport industry has now also endorsed framework guidelines for increasing the security of passengers of coaches, buses and taxis. This is quite revolutionary since most efforts have so far been devoted to supply chain management. Passenger transport operators can and will care for the security of passengers without external regulations being imposed on them.”

The IRU Transport Councils emphasised that security measures should go hand in hand with trade, tourism and road transport facilitation and harmonisation measures based on the UN conventions and WTO legal instruments since both security and facilitation are dependent on efficient information flow.