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DIVERSION AHEAD
THE 107TH SESSION of the UN Economic Commission for Europe’s (ECE) Working Party on the Transport of Dangerous Goods (WP15) took place in Geneva this past 11 to 15 November. WP15 is the body responsible for maintaining the ADR Agreement and its regulatory annexes that form the basis for the transport of dangerous goods by road throughout Europe and increasingly further afield. The meeting was chaired by Ariane Roumier (France) with Alfonso Simoni (Italy) as vice-chair.
from Algeria, Jordan, Morocco, Nigeria and Tunisia, the European Union (EU), the Intergovernmental Organisation for International Carriage by Rail (OTIF) and four non-governmental organisations. The main task of the session was to agree the amendments that had been adopted at the earlier Joint Meeting of RID/ADR/ADN experts, insofar as they are applicable to and appropriate for road transport. These amendments will appear in the text of ADR that takes effect in 2021.
be aligned with ADR as far as possible. Turkey, with nearly ten years as a contracting party to ADR, made a presentation on what it saw as the benefits of attending meetings of WP15, which was warmly received and provided some guidance to other states on the periphery of the core ADR group. In a similar vein, Tunisia and the representative of the Euromed project reiterated that the lack of an Arabic language version of ADR remains a major obstacle in spreading its usability in some countries. WP15 noted that discussions are still ongoing to allow the translation work to proceed, subject to funding being available for the language services of the UN office in Geneva. The Euromed representative said that such funding could be covered by the Euromed project, at least for an initial edition, although a long-term solution is needed to allow the biennial updates to also be translated. The Netherlands stressed the country’s political commitment to improving safety and reducing the environmental impact of transport
It was attended by representatives of 25 European countries along with representatives
Before moving on to discussion of those changes, however, WP15 reviewed the strategy of its parent body, the Inland Transport Committee (ITC) to 2030 and confirmed that its work and ADR are fully in line with that strategy. It recommended that national laws on the transport of dangerous goods should
operations and its representative stated that he would support further work in this area within ADR to help achieve the sustainable development goals set out in the ITC strategy. Finally, it was noted that there had been no new contracting parties to ADR since the previous meeting, although Malta had
ROAD • IT LOOKS VERY MUCH LIKE THE 2021 TEXT OF ADR WILL CONTAIN A LARGE NUMBER OF AMENDMENTS, NOT ALL OF WHICH WILL BE HARMONISED WITH THE UN MODEL REGULATIONS
AN ARABIC-LANGUAGE VERSION OF ADR IS SORELY NEEDED IF ITS USE IS TO WIDEN
HCB MONTHLY | MARCH 2020
