3. Why it was so politically divisive
In EU lawmaking, negotiators’ positions can often be traced back to their political affiliation or the European Parliament’s typically more ambitious stance. But in the long-running talks on the Mobility Package, Council of the EU and Parliament negotiators — and even commissioners — split along geographic lines. It took negotiators years to find a carefully crafted deal that passed muster with enough countries. Take one piece of the puzzle out and the whole thing could come crashing down, they have warned.
4. Who’s involved?
Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania, Cyprus, Hungary, Malta and Poland lodged a total of 15 challenges with the court. Estonia and Latvia, the two other countries which voted against the package, added their support to some of those challenges. Belgium backed Malta in its challenge of one measure.
Other countries, including Germany, Italy, Sweden, Luxembourg, Denmark and Austria, banded together in a France-led “road alliance” and turned to the court in defense of the legislation.
5. It’s bigger than transport
Countries supporting the package called for measures to improve truckers’ work conditions, framing it as an effort to halt a broader “race to the bottom” across the sector.
Their warnings centered on worries that the bloc’s free-movement rules could harm social rights and erode support for the EU. They argued that cheaper workers moving from poorer EU countries undermine the working conditions of their own drivers.
But countries questioning the reform saw that as protectionism. They complained that older EU countries treated the European project’s promise of free competition in a common EU market as something they’d only defend if it was to their advantage.
That makes the stakes very high.
“Over and above the legal issues at stake, it is therefore also, in a way, the pursuit of a desire to live together on common economic and social foundations that is at stake in these actions,” Pitruzzella cautioned in his opinion.