European Council agreement will not sustain the 'greening of transport'

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18 October 2010

The European Shippers' Council is greatly disappointed with an agreement reached by the Council of Ministers of Transport last Friday. The ministers and their representatives made a political pact to shoe-horn through the legislative proposal to modify the 'Eurovignette Directive'. This directive aims to introducing charging for transport infrastructure (so-called internalisation of external costs) for road freight transport. In a compromise deal, the Council of Ministers suggests charging to be based on the levels of local pollution and noise created by road freight transport.

Nicolette van der Jagt, Secretary General of ESC said; "the impact of this proposal, if implemented, could be substantial for Europe's economy, particularly in those regions where there is simply no viable or practical alternative to road freight transport."

The Ministers agreed to allow a maximum variation of the infrastructure charge of 175% during a maximum five hour period per day where member states could justify it on the basis of local congestion problems.

The Council is only looking at charging road freight and as yet cannot agree to deal with other modes of transport or passenger and private car use in the same way. ESC believes this compromise agreement is wrong and will not have any significant difference on the environment. Instead, ESC claims, this will merely result in more expensive freight transport, which the rest of the economy will have to pay for.

Ms van der Jagt continued: "Industry does believe that tackling the problems of congestion, noise and road traffic accidents are important goals. But this is best achieved by tackling the causes of each rather than purely finding a cure for the symptoms once the damage is done."

Unlike the European Parliament before it, the Council of Ministers could not reach agreement on the European Commission's proposal to make compulsory the allocation of revenue raised from such charges to specific transport-related projects that would reduce the problems of noise, pollution and reduce accidents.

ESC believes that this represents a lost opportunity to use the revenue to offer direct help to industry's own efforts to 'green' itself for the long-term. "Without earmarking," Ms van der Jagt said, "Member States are free to spend the revenue on what ever they like, and totally unrelated to transport projects that would help reduce the pollution, noise and accident levels. What good to the environment can possibly be derived from that? How is that supposed to deliver 'greener' and more efficient freight transport if it is not to be used to help provide the infrastructure and implement the technological developments that could actually reduce or remove the problems? Is pricing out European industry through operating penalties in their logistics and supply chain needs really what the Ministers want?

"ESC will look to the European Parliament to restore sense to this proposal and insist that the money derived from road user charges will be transferred back into investments in infrastructure, and greener vehicle technologies and management."

For further information contact: Nicolette van der Jagt, Secretary General of the ESC - Brussels 00 322 230 2113

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