Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-03-10-Speech-2-401"
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"en.20090310.34.2-401"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, first of all, I would like to thank Mr El Khadraoui. He has achieved a workable compromise under really difficult conditions.
For us transport policy makers, it is a quantum leap forward that air pollution, noise and congestion can now also be included in the tolls. This reinforces the polluter pays principle. The polluter pays principle prevents profits going into private hands while the damage is paid for by society. That is a social democratic concept. Parliament has resolved to introduce this principle to all modes of transport step by step. There will then, at long last, be fair competition between the railways, lorries and inland waterways.
It must also be made clear at this point that it will be entirely up to the Member States whether or not these additional tolls are implemented. Nobody will be forced to do so. All we are doing here is setting up the basic framework for it so that there is no patchwork of different toll models across Europe, thereby avoiding discrimination, as road haulage should be treated in a comparable way throughout the internal market. For us, this is not about additional income streams but is, instead, about directing transport more strongly by means of price signals. The Committee on Transport and Tourism is right to want to see the mandatory ring-fencing of this additional income for use in reducing external damage.
However, there is still one fly in the ointment, as I see it. Unfortunately, the committee decision, as it currently stands, links the introduction of congestion costs for goods vehicles to the inclusion of other modes of transport, such as passenger cars. That will prevent the introduction of congestion costs in those Member States, such as Germany, that do not want a toll for passenger cars. That therefore denies us an important instrument of taxation in the field of transport policy.
My conclusion is as follows: tomorrow’s vote offers a breakthrough in transport policy after decades of discussion about external costs. I hope that we will receive the necessary majority to achieve that breakthrough."@en1
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