Salzburg

Legal basis under the Salzburg message exchange is the Salzburg Forum CBE Agreement, between the Republic of Bulgaria, the Republic of Croatia, Hungary and the Republic of Austria on Facilitating Cross-border Enforcement of Road Safety Related Traffic Offences.

Furthermore, there is an Administrative and Technical Implementing Agreement (ATIA) to the Agreement between the Republic of Bulgaria, the Republic of Croatia, Hungary and the Republic of Austria on Facilitating Cross-border Enforcement of Road Safety Related Traffic Offences

Currently, the services are used by the Member States that signed the agreement (listed above).

 

Key features of the Salzburg information exchange are:

  • Open to all Member States that take part in CBE
  • Application of the principle of mutual recognition to financial penalties (Council Framework Decision 2005/214/JHA)
  • Mutual legal assistance (MLA) in four areas (see further Dataset A-D)
  • Mutual recognition of judicial decisions (EU directive on the EIO 2014/41)
  • Independency of the different liability regimes in Member States
  • Information exchange via National Contact Points, using an accredited network (Testa)

 

The Salzburg services are functionally (but not technically) related to the CBE services. The Salzburg services offer various means of follow up, to be used if the standard CBE procedure – sending an information letter because a CBE enforceable traffic offence was committed – fails to lead to the desired result, which is payment of the fine.

The Salzburg information exchange consists of four independent message dialogues, where the requesting authority is an authority in the Member State where a CBE offence has been committed, and the requested authority is the Member State where the offending vehicle is registered and/or the obliged person is resident. Messages are exchanged via the National Contact Points of the Member State. In processing the messages, various authorities may be involved, at both requesting and requested side.

 

Dataset A: Identification of driver.

This inquiry can be used if it is required to know who drove the vehicle at the moment the CBE offence was committed. The inquiry aims to obtain name and address data of the driver.

Dataset B: Establishment of address.

This inquiry can be used if it turns out that the address of the addressee of the information letter, obtained in the CBE information exchange, is incorrect or outdated. The inquiry aims to obtain the correct or updated address.

Dataset C: Sending and servicing of documents

This inquiry can be used to send or service a document, e.g. the CBE information letter, if regular ways of delivery (sending it by mail) have failed or turn out to be impossible. The inquiry aims delivery of the document in person to the addressee and  therefore reach a final decision (see Dataset D).

Dataset D: Cross-border execution

This service is used if an authority’s or a court’s decision has become final, and a decision has been made to hand over the enforcement from the Member State where the CBE offence was committed, to the Member State where the obliged person (natural or legal person) is resident. The Member State where the obliged person is resident, takes care of further enforcement steps, and gives feedback to the requesting Member State about the outcome.

 

All message dialogues consist of a request and response message, that are exchanged asynchronously. Since the processing of a request may require a variety of (manual) actions, by a variety of persons and authorities, the amount of time between sending the request and receiving the response, is indefinite.

It is possible to ‘reverse’ a request by sending a reversal message, which asks the requested authority to abort processing of the request message. One obvious reason for sending a reversal is that the obliged person  has paid the fine.

Any delivery of any message is acknowledged, i.e. if a request, response, or reversal message is received by a Member State, it responds with an acknowledgement message, to indicate that the message has been received in good order.

 

The Salzburg Forum Member States are in production with message version 1.0 of the Salzburg messages. Message version 2.0 is available as of 1st November 2020. It is the intention that the Salzburg Forum Member State upgrade to this new version.

 

For detailed functional specifications, visit the Salzburg documentation page. (Account for the download section required).

For technical information about the Salzburg service, visit our knowledge base:
Salzburg technical info.