Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-07-01-Speech-1-034"
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"en.20020701.4.1-034"2
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".
Mr President, I apologise for my late arrival. I thought that I was scheduled to speak later, but Mrs Peijs has been extremely professional and I thank her and I welcome the support she has given.
This was an extremely difficult report, a subject already very familiar to all the members of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, given that it has already failed on two previous occasions. We are faced with differences of opinion that are certainly not run-of-the-mill. They are more to do with geographical than political issues, between peripheral countries that wish to transport, and central and transit countries that wish to ban transport. For some time, I feared that we were gravitating towards a contradictory consensus, where everyone would reject this directive: some because they wish to have freedom of movement, others because they wish to have the freedom to impose a ban. I think that we have finally achieved – after many years of work and thanks to a proposal by the Commission, which is already a compromise – a good balance. The only issue to be resolved between us, between those Members who wish to reject this draft directive and the others, is to establish whether we should introduce legislation in this area. I personally believe that we should.
The current situation is totally anarchical, which creates unexpected difficulties virtually everywhere in each country and particularly at borders. The dates for the ban only apply in seven out of nine countries: these are not co-ordinated, they give rise to illegal parking on motorways, and even sometimes in motorway service area car parks. As a result, lorry drivers are very often away from home because of difficulties in scheduling their journeys and, lastly, the dates make it very difficult for hauliers and the transport economy to organise the logistics chain.
In my view, this legislation is valid from all viewpoints. First of all, because I believe that we have the necessary legal bases. It would be extremely paradoxical for European road transport, which was Europe’s first transport sector to become established, now to return to being auxiliary. The European Parliament would be sending out entirely the wrong message if it said, at the end of the day, the title relating to Transport in the EC Treaty does not apply to road transport. How then could we dictate that, in the future, it will apply to rail, to the maritime sector and to all the other sectors?
Personally speaking, I feel it is very important for a Europe of transport to be implemented and that it leads us towards a policy which was also alluded to in the White Paper, and I think that this is a good reason. There is, however, another, even more important reason: we currently have no legal certainty as far as bans on movement at weekends are concerned and the countries – and I say this to those who wish to reject the proposal – which would like to strengthen this proposal unilaterally would expose themselves to legal proceedings and to possible appeals based solely on the principles of the freedom of movement and non-discrimination and which would most probably pose a threat to a number of existing bans, as well as to the regulation that is commonly known as the ‘strawberry regulation’ of 1998, which has recently been imposed on France in order to allow lorries to travel through the Mont Blanc tunnel. I therefore believe that this will guarantee security for all countries that have introduced bans.
Furthermore, I would reiterate that the proposal by the Commission provides a legal basis for what are currently the most stringent bans, namely those in Austria and Germany, and which ensures that the other countries can choose whether to conform to them. The proposal is, in fact, to introduce bans similar to those in Germany and Austria with specific or not so crucial derogations, an exemption scheme in other words, and I will be giving my personal support to Mrs Peijs in calling for the introduction of an exemption for fresh flowers and horticultural products, as I believe that these are products that are difficult to keep fresh. In short, by imposing bans on the movement of HGVs at the weekend, we are being extremely flexible as well as providing reassurance. I live in a region where there is heavy HGV traffic, and I cannot imagine meeting my constituents to explain that the European Parliament does not wish to ban HGV traffic at weekends, which would of course be huge step backwards.
I welcome the fact that the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism has finally managed to find a
. Tomorrow, we must examine the 21 amendments, which were adopted in committee, and the 18 new amendments. I do not think that we should alter the balance of the text too greatly and I myself will call for the amendments tabled by the Group for a Europe of Democracies and Diversities to be rejected, namely Amendments Nos 30, 28 and 31, which ultimately propose to return to the Commission’s draft text that was rejected in 1998 and which specified “Sundays only” – this is too little. Secondly, I will propose that we reject Amendments Nos 22 and 23 as well, which were tabled by the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party and which, conversely, and this is perfectly legitimate, would result in the Commission acquiring greater powers than anticipated in the text. Lastly, I agree with Mrs Peijs that some amendments distort the text and that we must not therefore venture down that path."@en1
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