EC to tighten labour rules for truck drivers in May

© Dmitrii Kiselev | Dreamstime.com - Driver of the car is sitting thinking

The salaries of truck drivers across the EU continues to vary enormously – a Bulgarian or Romanian trucker pockets around €1,400 a month, while a Danish counterpart can expect to earn three times that. As a result, so-called letterbox companies, that take advantage of that variation and end up driving down salaries, will soon find themselves in the crosshairs of EC transport commissioner Violeta Bulc. He has vowed to close the loopholes and “beef up enforcement measures to prevent employers from breaking the law”. But it is difficult getting everyone to agree – last year Germany and France both introduced national laws to force firms to pay drivers the national minimum wage while trucks are passing through their countries, and the EC has subsequently opened infringement cases against both.