Question by Bogusław Sonik to the Council on disparities in driver blood-alcohol limits

Please note that the question below will be answered orally by the council at the plenary session in March.

Subject: Disparities in driver blood-alcohol limits in the EU Member States. In 1988 the Commission put forward proposals for changes to permissible blood-alcohol levels for drivers of motor vehicles. Those changes were not, however, adopted. In many Member States - for example, the United Kingdom, Italy, Ireland and Luxembourg - the limit on the amount of alcohol that anyone driving a vehicle may have in their blood has been set at 0.8 mg/ml. In Slovakia and Hungary, which do not allow anyone who has consumed even the smallest amount of alcohol to drive, any driver with that amount of alcohol in their blood would be committing a serious offence. In Poland, the rules governing the driving of vehicles laid down in the Road Traffic Act of 20 June 1997 (Official Gazette No 108, 2005, Item 908, as subsequently amended) set the permissible blood alcohol level at 0.2 mg/l. Given the current trend towards the standardisation of road traffic legislation within the EU, does the Council intend to take steps to standardise permissible blood-alcohol levels for drivers in the EU Member States?