Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-09-24-Speech-2-258"
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"en.20020924.11.2-258"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, we are all aware of the existing congestion on European roads and the significant external costs of goods transport by road, such as accidents, noise, pollution, climatic effects, the provision and maintenance of infrastructures etc. But this is nothing compared to the bleak predictions of what the future may hold if we do not implement measures to deal with these threats.
It is calculated that goods transport by road in the Union will increase by 50% by 2010 at a rate – as the Commissioner has said quite rightly – of 12 000 million tonnes per kilometre per year, and it is clear that neither the Trans-European Networks nor our environment can endure the brutal impact of this increase. We therefore need to adopt measures which, far from affecting our economic growth and progress, guarantee its sustainability.
The Marco Polo programme is an absolutely essential instrument, but we must ensure that it moves in the right direction. Given the limits on the resources available for this financial instrument, its aid must be focussed strictly towards the transfer of the greatest possible amount of the goods currently transported by road to other forms of transport which are more respectful of the environment and which produce fewer external costs, such as short sea shipping, railways and inland waterways. We have no choice but to sacrifice the intermodality between these latter two alternatives if we do not achieve our priority: to reduce the congestion of the roads.
At the same time, as well as a common political will on cross-border projects, we must promote the prevention and reduction of transport needs. We must revise the systems of packaging, industrial logistics, the organisation of production chains, etc., with a view to preventing raw materials, intermediate goods and end products from having to be moved further than is essential. To this end, in business economies we must take account not only of the expenditure generated by transport services but also their external costs properly assessed. Only in that way can we achieve a general awareness which leads to an organisational transformation and a reduction in transport needs."@en1
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