The European Commission has recently presented its White Paper – Roadmap to a Single European Transport Area – Towards a competitive and resource efficient transport system. The Commission wants to revolutionize the European transport systems, and the present paper lays down its ambitious plans for the next 40 years. The Commission announced several measures intend to “increase the competitiveness of transport while delivering the minimum 60% reduction of GHG emissions from transport needed by 2050.”
The Commission will put forward legislative proposals in the next ten years to implement the transport strategy. However, some issues addressed by the White Paper have no cross border aspects, being, therefore, pure national issues. Consequently, they should not be coordinated at EU level. The Commission is once again breaching the subsidiarity principle, and is not taking into account member states regional differences. It is up for the member states to decide national infrastructure planning and financing, but the Commission is planning to intefer on these issues.
Moreover, the Commission plans entail further costs for travellers and transport companies. The Commission’ strategy will have an impact on all transports, medium distances, long distances and urban transport.
The Commission recalled that “Overall, the EU needs to reduce emissions by 80-95% below 1990 levels by 2050, in the context of the necessary reductions of the developed countries as a group, in order to reach this goal.” The transport sector will be required to reduce 60% of GHGs by 2050 with respect to 1990, in the meantime, by 2030, it will have to reduce GHG emissions to around 20% below their 2008 level.
According to the Commission “The challenge is to break the transport system’s dependence on oil without sacrificing its efficiency and compromising mobility.” The Commission’s strategy is aiming at reducing Europe's dependence on imported oil. The Commission proposes, therefore, ten benchmarks for achieving the 60% GHG emission reduction target for the transport sector.
One of the most delusions of the Commission plans it is to halve the use of petrol and diesel-driven cars in urban transport by 2030 and ban them completely from the cities by 2050. It remains to be seen how the Commission will force people out of their cars. Facing critics that the Commission’s plans will reduce personal mobility and Europe's economic competitiveness, Siim Kallas, the European Commissioner for Transport, said "Curbing mobility is not an option, neither is business as usual. We can break the transport system's dependence on oil without sacrificing its efficiency and compromising mobility. It can be win-win," However, the Commission has no competence to interfere with urban transport choices. In fact, UK Transport Minister Norman Baker has already said, according to the BBC, "It is right that the EU sets high-level targets for carbon reduction, however it is not right for them to get involved in how this is delivered in individual cities,"
One could wonder if the Commission is planning to introduce a legislative proposal forbidding fuelled cars to be placed on the EU market from 2050. In the meantime, the Commission will review the directives on vehicle labelling for CO2 emissions and fuel efficiency, in order to pursue “the harmonisation of the label and vehicles fuel efficiency classes throughout the Member States.”
Moreover, the paper envisages that by 2050, 40% of aviation fuel should come from sustainable biofuels and shipping should reduce CO2 emissions by 40%.
The Commission is also proposing to shift by 30% road freight to rail or waterborne transport for distances longer than 300 kilometres, by 2030, and by 50% by 2050. It is also suggesting that by 2050 the majority of medium-distance passenger journeys should be made by rail. Consequently, we cannot take short-haul flights, cheap holiday flights would be over.
According to Euractiv, Michael Nielsen, the International Road Transport Union's general delegate to the EU, said "But we don't believe that the disguised forced modal shift that they're now introducing again for road freight over 300km will achieve that (reduce CO2 by 60%)…They tried it once before in 2001, they will probably try it again and our hope and even request to the Commission is that they will not lose a lot of money trying,"
The White Paper envisages greater application of “user pays” and “polluter pays” principles, which would entail increases on plane, bus and rail, ticket prices.
The main Commission’s objective for the next ten years is to create a genuine Single European Transport Area. The Commission wants to implement the Single European Sky, and to put in place a Single European Railway Area introducing a single vehicle type authorisation and a single railway undertaking safety certification. As regards maritime transport, the Commission is planning to develop the European Maritime Transport Space without Barriers into a “Blue Belt” in the European seas. As regards road freight, the Commission will review the rules on the tachograph, harmonise sanctions for infringement to EU rules on professional transport and harmonise training of enforcement officers.
The Commission is also planning to develop a transport security strategy. As regards passenger security, it is planning to improve screening methods, including the development of a ‘Check point of the future’ –security corridors, as well as to develop more technologies (scanners, detectors of new explosives, smart chips). In fact, the Commission wants to put in place common detection performance standards and certifications procedures for detection equipment.
The Commission also wants to develop a European Strategy for civil aviation safety, and it is planning to harmonize road safety technology, including driver assistance systems, (smart) speed limiters, seat-belt reminders, eCall, cooperative systems and vehicle-infrastructure interfaces as well as to introduce common definitions and standard classifications of injuries and fatalities. As regards shipping, the Commission has in mind to create an EU register and EU flag for maritime and inland waterway transport. According to the Commission just safe, secure, environmentally friendly ships would be entitled to carry the EU sign. Moreover, it seems that the Commission has in mind to establish an EU coastguard.
It is important to recall that Brussels has recently adopted a regulation on the rights of passengers in bus and coach transport and a regulation concerning the rights of passengers when travelling by sea and inland waterway, creating a set of passenger rights similar to the rights introduced for airline and rail passengers. The adoption of such proposal will result in better benefits for passengers however it also entails increased costs to operators which are likely to be passed on to passengers in the form of higher fares. The Commission is now planning to “Develop a uniform interpretation of EU Law on passenger rights and a harmonised and effective enforcement” and it is considering "the adoption of a single EU framework Regulation covering passenger rights for all modes of transports (EU Codex).”
The Commission is also planning to put in place “A fully functional and EU-wide multimodal TEN-T ‘core network’ by 2030, with a high quality and capacity network by 2050 and a corresponding set of information services.” It will, therefore, develop “an innovation and deployment strategy for the transport sector.” The Commission is particularly considering “the deployment of smart mobility systems developed through EU-funded research”, including the air traffic management system of the future (SESAR), the European rail traffic management system (ERTMS) and rail information systems, maritime surveillance systems (SafeSeaNet), River Information Services (RIS), intelligent transport systems (ITS). It is important to bear in mind that all these new intelligent and interoperable technologies raise concerns over protection of privacy and personal data.
Stressing the need for “ a ‘core network’ of corridors, carrying large and consolidated volumes of freight and passengers traffic with high efficiency and low emissions” where “information technology tools should be widely deployed”, the Commission pointed out that “A well-performing transport network requires substantial resources.” The European Commission has estimated the cost of EU infrastructure development to match the demand for transport at over € 1.5 trillion for 2010-2030. Moreover, about € 550 billion are required to complete the TEN-T. The Commission is considering asking member states to earmark transport revenues to fund the TEN-T infrastructure. Furthermore, an additional trillion would be required to achieve the emission reduction goals for the transport system. The Commission pointed out that both public and private sources of finance would be required and that “Member States need to ensure that sufficient national funding is available in their budgetary planning, as well as sufficient project planning and implementation capacities.”
The Commission announced, in the present White paper, that transport charges and taxes would be restructured, which will happen between now and 2020.
It is important to mention that the Commission’s proposal to amend the so-called ‘Eurovignette Directive’ is, presently, going through the ordinary legislative procedure. Under the Commission draft proposal, Member States would be able, although not obliged, to integrate in tolls levied on road hauliers an amount, which reflects the cost of air pollution and noise pollution, caused by traffic. It is, therefore, optional for Member States to impose tolls and charges for transport-related environmental and social costs however the Commission will review the situation in 2013 and then it might become an obligation. In 2013, the Commission might decide to introduce a compulsory minimum charge. In fact, according to the White Paper, the Commission is planning to phase in “a mandatory harmonized internalisation system for commercial vehicles on the entire inter-urban network.” The Commission wants to introduce a “common tariff structure and cost components such as the recovery of wear and tear, noise and local pollution costs to replace the existing user charges.”
The Commission future proposals would not affect just heavy-duty vehicles but also passenger cars. The White Paper reads “For passenger cars, road charges are increasingly considered as an alternative way to generate revenue and influence traffic and travel behaviour.” In fact, according to the White Paper, “The long-term goal is to apply user charges to all vehicles and on the whole network to reflect at least the maintenance cost of infrastructure, congestion, air and noise pollution.” From 2016, the Commission will focus its attention on introducing “full and mandatory internalisation of external costs (…) for road and rail transport”, “Internalise costs for local pollution and noise in ports and airports, as well as for air pollution at sea,” the Commission will also consider whether to introduce “mandatory application of internalisation charges on all inland waterways on EU territory.”
The Coalition Government is planning to introduce tolls or road charges for heavy goods vehicles using the UK’s roads. In this case, the UK would have to comply with the Eurovignette Directive’s rules. However, if the Commission’s plans, abovementioned, go ahead, the UK, as well as the other member states, would no longer be free to adopt charges reflecting external costs such as those relating to environmental, noise and congestion, as the Commission is planning to charge all transport users.
Moreover, the Commission wants to “create a framework for earmarking revenues from transport for the development of an integrated and efficient transport system.” Consequently, Member States would not be able to use the revenue from the road charging schemes as they wish and allocate it to their general budget. The UK Government as well as the majority of the Member States opposes mandatory earmarking of charges to various measures contributing to the sustainability of transport. According to the Commission’s proposal to amend the so-called ‘Eurovignette Directive’ the toll’s revenue should be used to develop alternative infrastructure for transport users, to improve CO2 and energy performance of vehicles. Obviously, this has been a highly controversial issue among the Member States. Member states’ want to keep control of the takings from these tolls. Whereas the Council is opposed to legally binding earmarking of revenues this is a "sine qua non" condition to the European Parliament.
The Commission noted “Many branches of transport are treated favourably in terms of taxation, in comparison to the rest of the economy.” The Commission is planning, therefore, to interfere, again, with Member States’s sovereign power to tax and freely organize their tax systems. The Commission is proposing to link “vehicle taxation to environmental performance.” It is considering harmonizing “VAT levels on EU cross-border passenger transport”, meaning phasing out exemptions on VAT, as well as revising company car taxation, meaning removing tax breaks.
