Annual employer contributions ranging from €700 to €16,000; 54 TRM collective agreements, or one or none, depending on the country; 300 hours of overtime per year never recorded; 75% of total remuneration paid in the form of travel allowances exempt from social security contributions and taxes; a «sales» salary for a driver, consisting of a fixed monthly amount of €300 and a variable portion proportional to monthly mileage, which quadruples the income.
In this Prévert-style inventory of Europe's road transport sector, everything is real, everything is legal. Yet we thought we had harmonised everything before opening up the market. The result is stark: the same driving time, in the same lorry, on the same road, with the same goods, costs €8 or €33 per hour depending on whether the driver is employed by a Bulgarian or Belgian company. Naturally, this competitiveness differential, which is a factor of 4, is unsustainable in a single market.

Find all the figures and explanations in the 2016 social summary of the CNR's European studies, available for download in French and English.