Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-09-26-Speech-1-183-000"
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"en.20110926.21.1-183-000"2
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"Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in view of the present exceptional situation as a result of the financial, economic and budgetary crisis, decisions at European level should concentrate on urgent and important matters. That is the only way to rebuild our citizens’ trust in the sincerity of our actions.
My report deals with the strategy to prevent untold human suffering as a result of around 35 000 deaths and more than 1.5 million, often serious, injuries every year as a result of road accidents and to prevent the associated economic damage of EUR 130 billion a year. The number of deaths alone corresponds to what we would see if 250 fully occupied, medium-sized scheduled aircraft were to crash. Would we not do everything in our power to prevent that? The costs resulting from accidents exceed the European Union’s total annual budget by a considerable amount. I am therefore certain that it will be to our advantage to take long-term action in this area.
Thanks to the constructive cooperation of all shadow rapporteurs and many fellow Members we have succeeded for the first time with this report in drawing up a uniform, integrated, coherent approach to improving road safety. It takes into account the content of the UN Road Safety Charter 2010 to 2020 as well as the content and objectives of the road safety work done by the EU Member States and broader groups in civil society. For the first time, it contains ambitious, but realistic, objectives for the period up to 2020, with the ‘vision zero’ for the period after that.
Thus, the aim is to reduce the number of fatal accidents by 50%, although those involving children by as much as 60%, and to reduce the number of people seriously injured by 40%. That is very much in the interests of every single one of our citizens, but also of our economy. To the Member States, we recommend adapting the targets and methods to their territory and we expect them to produce their own road safety action programmes.
Secondly, the report specifies who is responsible for the individual activities and measures. This is by no means just the European Union. In the spirit of subsidiarity, the integrated approach means that the Member States, undertakings with regional or municipal responsibilities, indeed even each individual road user also has to take responsibility in terms of their duty of cooperation.
Thirdly, the report states how – in other words with which instruments, activities and measures – the objectives are to be met. Legislative proposals at European level are just one strategy. We cannot, and do not wish to, do without guidelines, recommendations and instructions. In this regard, particular attention must be given to the principle of subsidiarity, which means that areas of responsibility are clearly specified, including where responsibilities are split.
We value the diverse activities of the Commission. However, as they emanate from many different Directorates General, such as Mobility and Transport, Economic and Financial Affairs, Environment, Communication, Research and Innovation, Internal Market and Services and others, they are not always coherent, are often uncoordinated and sometimes they contradict one another. Therefore, we propose that a Road Safety Coordinator be appointed within the European Commission. In the long term, that will avoid the establishment of an agency for road safety and increase the efficiency of the European Commission enormously. Both the choice of measures and their evaluation require a scientifically sound approach based on comparable, high-quality data, definitions and statistics. We are therefore calling, among other things, for a harmonised analysis of the causes of injuries and accidents and the EU-wide exchange of data, whilst maintaining stringent personal data protection standards.
We have identified six main areas for action. They concern people as road users, the road traffic rules, vehicles, infrastructure, the smart networking of vehicles and infrastructure and particular consideration for vulnerable road users. I ask for your support tomorrow."@en1
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