EU regulation on extended validity of drivers’ licenses and tech. inspections not accepted by all states

The extended validity of drivers’ licenses and technical safety inspections of cars by seven months, due to the coronavirus pandemic, as announced by the European Union earlier this month, has not been adopted by all member states and may cause problems for people travelling around Europe by car, the Czech Transport Ministry warned on Monday.

According to the EU regulation it should have been possible to travel around the EU without these valid documents. However, a total of eight countries have rejected extending the validity of drivers’ licenses (Croatia, Slovenia, Spain, Ireland, Luxembourg, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia) and 21 countries have rejected extending the validity of the bi-annual technical inspection. Only Austria, Italy, Sweden, Cyprus, Portugal and the Czech Republic have fully accepted the extensions.