Cross-trade is international road transport between two different countries performed by a road motor vehicle registered in a third country. Other terms that may be encountered for this type of transport operation are throughput or so-called ‘large-scale cabotage’. Cross trade transport is possible and profitable due to the wide availability of external markets within the Schengen area.
In practice, this state of affairs has a real impact on the markets of all EU member states and results in a significant increase in competitiveness between transport companies in the individual countries of the Community. Cross trade is important because it connects markets and economies around the world, giving citizens more opportunities to produce and consume, stimulating economic growth, and reducing poverty around the world.
In these examples mentioned, there is cross-trade. In the first case, the shipper, i.e., the transport company from Poland, is neither Portugal nor German. In the second case, the Romanian company merely acts as an intermediary in the transport. It is worth noting at this point that this type of transport does not take place exclusively within the European Union.
It is accepted to recognize that cross-trade takes place between countries, not between companies. This means that the process is handled by national industries, not by individual companies. Above all, cross-trade allows companies to take care of activity in global economies, which was not possible before.
The difference between cross-trade and cabotage is that cross-trade is the transportation of goods from one country to another (across international borders), while cabotage is the transportation of goods exclusively within a country (but other than the country in which the company is registered).
For example, a cabotage would be, for example, a transport from Madrit to Barcelona carried out by a vehicle registered, for example, in Poland.
(For more information on cabotage, visit our blog, where we describe the new cabotage rules after the mobility package comes into effect.)
What, then, is the difference between cross-trade transportation? The places of loading and unloading of goods – they must be in different countries, so we would classify as cross-trade, for example, the carriage of cargo from Madrit to Paris. It is because of the larger scale of operations performed that cross-trade is sometimes referred to as large-scale cabotage.
Mobility package
In July 2020, the European Parliament announced the Mobility Package. This is a set of regulations for road transport in the community, aimed at improving working conditions for drivers and regulating the transport market. Some of the gradually introduced solutions have been criticized by Polish transport companies. Why?
The mobility package is a set of changes to EU regulations that affect the rules of carriers in the EU market. It is worth noting that Germany and France had already introduced internal regulations that applied to the work of drivers from other countries on their territories. The provisions of the Mobility Package concern, among other things:
Read more about the Mobility Package in our articles:
