By Peggy Corlin - 21st June 2006
“Sustainable mobility” will be the key EU objective for transport, according to transport commissioner Jacques Barrot.
Five years after its white paper on transport, the European commission has put forward a new set of proposals aimed at adapting EU transport policy to environmental and competition demands.
“Mobility is a key issue in the enlarged EU and also an increasingly important factor in the competitiveness of companies,” Barrot said.
“I would like to improve mobility within Europe and to move towards green propulsion and intelligent transport systems that use the very latest technologies.”
Brussels considers energy efficiency as a major new priority, with transport accounting for 70 per cent of total EU oil consumption.
Barrot wants to promote the use of alternative energies such as biofuels, with a flagship programme on green-powered vehicles to be unveiled by 2009.
The French transport commissioner also announced a logistics action plan for 2007 to improve synergies between all the transport modes, designed to make the industry more competitive and reduce its impact on the environment.
The use of new technologies will play a key part in promoting “intelligent transport”, the commissioner said.
“Satellite navigation allows us to go further in traffic control, and [the EU’s satellite navigation programme] Galileo will play a key role in promoting new technologies.”
Galileo is due to be launched by 2010, asssuming disputes over funding can be overcome.
Barrot also backed the eurovignette system – the long-disputed road-toll system for freight transport - which he believes will help cover many of the financial and environemental ‘costs’ of his new policy.
But environmental groups have criticised Barrot’s new strategy for reneging on earlier pledges to shift the emphasis away from road transport towards ‘greener’ systems such as rail or maritime transport.
“The green rhetoric of commissioner Barrot cannot mask the fact that the commission has pandered to the road transport lobby in its review,” said Green MEP Eva Lichtenberger.
“We condemn the commission’s decision to scrap the so-called ‘modal shift’ (the shift of long-distance transport from the road on the rail) as a transport policy priority.”
“The commission should have proposed additional measures to achieve this modal shift,” she continued.
“The review notes the lack of competitiveness of rail transport but fails to point out the real reason for this: a distorted price structure in which existing toll roads fall pitifully short of covering the costs of road transport for society.”
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