Keeping your UK paper licence until you are 70, when it expires, seems to be the easiest option ... or is it? I looked into this a few years ago but seem to have lost my notes so I have just been re-checking my facts, only to find that things have changed in the meantime. It is not as simple as it used to be.
In the
DIRECTIVE 2006/126/EC OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL
of 20 December 2006, Article 2(1) states:
Driving licences issued by Member States shall be mutually recognised.
This is the entire paragraph. The are no qualifications. No IFs, BUTs or MAYBEs. No date restrictions. No requirement for the licence to be the modern photocard style. No requirement to carry an international licence or translation. Nothing.
Thus any valid UK licence must be recognised here in Finland. Regarding whether your licence is provisional or not, on the bottom of my licence (I also have an old paper one) it gives the "Date of category B test pass". If yours has a date there I don't see how anyone can claim it is a provisional licence.
That is the good news. If you want to stick your head in the sand you can stop reading now but there is also bad new in Article 2(2), the only other paragraph under the heading "Mutual recognition". This states:
When the holder of a valid national driving licence without the administrative validity period set out in Article 7(2) takes up normal residence in a Member State other than that which issued the driving licence, the host Member State may apply to the licence the administrative validity periods set out in that Article by renewing the driving licence, as from 2 years after the date on which the holder has taken up normal residence on its territory.
Note that this says "... host Member State
may apply to the licence ...". So it is optional. Has Finland taken up that option? I don't know and I don't know how to check it.
Fast forward to Article 7(2) and this says, among other things:
As from 19 January 2013, licences issued by Member States for categories AM, A1, A2, A, B, B1 and BE shall have an administrative validity of 10 years.
A Member State may choose to issue such licences with an administrative validity of up to 15 years;
That, to me, is ambiguous. Read it one way and it says that the expiration date of your licence is not the date written on the licence but is instead 10 (or 15) years after the date of issue, so your licence (and mine) is no longer valid.
The other way of reading Article 7(2) is that it applies only to licences issued after 19 January 2013, in which case our licences are still valid in the UK, and so must be recognised in Finland - except that Finland may choose to regard them as expired.
I think we need to look into this more. There are 3 possibilities:
a) As from 19 January 2013 our licences have expired. I don't think this can be true. If it were, how would it be possible for any licence not to have the new validity periods? The directive makes it clear that such a possibility exists, when it states in Article 2(2) that
"When the holder of a valid national driving licence without the administrative validity period set out in Article 7(2) ...". Or did that possibility exist before 19 January 2013 but not now?
b) As from 19 January 2013 our licences have continued to be valid in the UK but Finland regards them as expired. I see this as a real possibility. We could be in the ridiculous position of having a licence valid in the UK and everywhere in the EU except Finland.
c) Paper licences are still valid in the UK and Finland has not taken up the option in Article 2(2) so our licences are still valid here.
I think we need to check 2 things. Are our papers licence still valid in the UK, and does Finland apply the 10 (or 15) year validity period to them?
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