Transport policy looks set for U-turn

Director-General of the International Automobile Federation’s European Bureau Wil Botman underlined that mobility was not just about transporting goods, but also citizens. Indeed, “85% of citizens’ movements are done by road, against just 50% for goods”, he said, questioning whether the mid-term review’s new focus on co-modality will be useful to address citizens’ mobility problems. He also stressed the need to take road safety into account at all levels of the EU’s transport policy. 

ACEA Director of Transport Policy Fuensanta Martinez-Sans said that by getting rid of the concepts of modal shift and decoupling, the EU had taken a step in the right direction towards rebalancing its transport policy and making it more realistic. She urged the EU to increase investments in roads rather than in rail and other infrastructure because most traffic increases between now and 2020 will be on the roads. 

Hubert Linssen, general delegate of the International Road Union’s permanent delegation to the EU, welcomed the Commission’s renewed focus on roads, saying that co-modality and logistics will do a lot to make transport more efficient. But he criticised the way that member states were implementing smart-charging policies. “We are not against paying our way,” he stressed, but with some countries enforcing both peak-hour and night-time bans for trucks, “truck-drivers have only six hours left to serve the whole European economy”. He urged the Commission to reintroduce a proposal for a harmonised traffic-ban regulation and stressed that it was unfair that smart charging be applied only to trucks which represent just 15% of traffic. 

The Community of European Railway and Infrastructure Companies (CER), which was not present among the speakers, nevertheless believes that a modal shift from road to rail, among others by ensuring that the prices reflect the real economic, social and environmental costs of products and services is crucial for a "competitive, secure, safe, and environmentally friendly mobility".

NGO Transport and Environment Director Jos Dings reminded the Commission that there was “more to a transport policy than just making the associated industries happy” and that it must also contribute to citizens’ well-being in general. He also reminded the Commission that its new Communication strayed away from principles which had not only been outlined in its original transport policy but which are also included in its revised “Strategy for the Sustainable Development of Europe” - reducing pollution and noise levels and decoupling transport and economic growth. He stressed that some of Europe’s most competitive economies, Sweden and the UK, had been successful in decoupling and urged the Commission to introduce effective policies to create a Europe less dependent both on energy and transport. 

International Association of Public Transport (UITP) Director Brigitte Ollier stressed the need for a strong focus on cities, which are home to 80% of Europe’s population and where pollution and congestion problems are at their worst due to the limited space. 

Kerstin Jorna, deputy head of cabinet to Transport Commissioner Jacques Barrot, replied: “There is an enormous expectation gap between what we want and what we can do; and that gap is called subsidiarity.” Nevertheless, she said the Commission would launch a debate on this issue in a Green Paper in 2007 because it believes it is an important issue. 

Dr. Hanns Glatz, Delegate of the Board of Management, Daimler-Chrysler, pointed out that taxes were a useful instrument, but that so far their use had been restricted to encouraging pollution reduction. He said: “Road safety is just as important as pollution” and suggested that taxes could be introduced to encourage the production and consumption of safer vehicles.