Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-09-20-Speech-3-042"
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"en.20000920.4.3-042"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, in the last fortnight, we have seen a real euro-shambles where transport is concerned, with a petrol shortage, road blockades, mass protests and governments disabled. You really would have thought you were back in 1973 after the first oil crisis. And that is not counting the plummeting euro and the explosion in the price of a barrel of crude oil, factors not anticipated in the past oracular pronouncements by self-styled experts on Europe.
Largely predictable though it was, this crisis is as much the responsibility of the oil producers as of government. Many varied solutions have been put forward, for the situations and the reasons for them are different from one country to another. Many of these solutions are perfectly rational and obvious and, occasionally, ideological such as restrictions on vehicles or the eco-tax but, as you reminded us, none of these is a panacea that will in itself sort out the situation.
It should be remembered that what chiefly distinguishes the fuel question is its relation to currency and taxation issues and the way it goes on to affect urban and rural planning. For, if this crisis affects people in their working lives, it also affects people in their private lives, especially in rural areas where the car is still too often the main means of transport and communication and the one to which people resort. It is a situation resulting from the gradual withdrawal of public services which has not been offset by private operators, who are much too concerned with maximising their profits.
Strategies relating to taxation, the currency and urban and rural planning are matters for each Member State and each Member State alone, in accordance with the sacrosanct principle of subsidiarity.
To conclude, we want to see lower fuel tax because, at present, it is too much of a burden on the people of Europe, in both their private and working lives. However, there are additional strategies open to our Member States. The European Union must leave the latter free to exercise their sovereignty in making judicious strategy choices when it comes to energy savings, supplementary forms of renewable energy, the redistribution of freight to the railways and rivers and the development of public transport and the opening up of rural areas."@en1
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