A provisional agreement was reached on Tuesday evening between Parliament and Council negotiators on new rules ensuring that the withdrawal of a non-resident’s driving licence is applied across all EU countries.

Currently, if a driver loses their licence following a traffic offence in a different EU country to the one where the licence was issued, the sanction will only be applicable, in most cases, in the country where the offence was committed and not where it was issued or any other EU member state. According to the agreement agreed by MEPs and the Council, a driving withdrawal, suspension or restriction will be passed on to the EU country which issued the driving licence to enforce the penalty and make sure it is followed across the whole of the EU.

Triggers for EU-wide penalties

With the new rules in place, concerned EU countries will have to inform each other, without undue delay, about decisions on driving disqualifications related to the most severe traffic offences -…