By Martin Banks - 2nd December 2009
Transport is the backbone of the European economy
Transport associations
The new European commission is being urged to give "higher priority" to the transport sector when it takes up office in the New Year.
Eight transport-sector associations have written to its president José Manuel Barroso urging him to "recognise the vital and essential" contribution the industry makes to Europe's economy.
The signatories to the letter represent companies from the road, rail, air and maritime sectors.
They called on the new commission to "develop a comprehensive" transport policy.
The letter says, "Transport policy must be given a higher priority that reflects the importance of the sector’s contribution to the development of the EU.
“Our sector should be seen and developed with full consideration given to all the complex environmental, economic, social, and employment factors that are inseparable from EU transport policy and the achievement of a prosperous, integrated and successful EU,” they write.
The letter says that in the recently published ‘political guidelines for the new commission’, presented by Barroso in July, ‘decarbonisation of the transport sector’ was the sole reference to transport in the entire document.
“Decisively tackling the environmental challenges is a more important priority than ever before and has to be a key element of the future European transport and climate policy,” the sector organisations say.
“But it should not be pursued to the exclusion of all other transport policy goals,” they add.
Transport, it says, is ‘the backbone’ of the European economy, accounting directly for seven per cent of GDP and more than five per cent of total employment in the EU.
This number more than doubles if the related industries serving transport, such as manufacturing, servicing, maintenance, and IT, are included.
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