Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-07-04-Speech-2-302"
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"en.20000704.12.2-302"2
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"Mr President, and those fellow Members who are still awake, I would like to thank Mr Jarzembowski and Mr Swoboda for their lucid reports, with reference to which we can at last try to revive the railways by opening them up to competition. It is fashionable these days to talk about the railways; it is politically correct. It often feels as if Parliament is a chamber where there is just one permitted truth. We all dash along in the same direction, like a flock of sheep, trying to convince one another that the railways will solve Europe’s transport problems. It is hard for us politicians to admit the facts. I have nothing at all against the railways; on the contrary, I greatly enjoy sitting in the buffet car, having a beer and admiring the landscape as it flits past.
To be able to make reasonable decisions we have to identify the real importance of the railways for the economy and examine just how big a part the various modes of transport play. By far the biggest is road transport. The share of rail transport, measured in tons per kilometre, has fallen to below 15%, but even this way of measuring the figures gives too rosy a picture of the situation. From the economic point of view, transporting fifty computers a thousand kilometres is quite a different matter from transporting a hundred tons of grit ten kilometres, although the tonnage per kilometre is the same in both cases. It is also quite a different matter to transport raw textiles weighing tons as compared to an enormous load of silk neckties – I had one for myself, by the way. For this reason, any comparison must be made on the basis of the value of the consignments, and, if it is calculated this way, the share the railways have is just – surprise, surprise – 3%. I am not mathematically gifted, but I see a dramatic difference in favour of road transport, whose share is more than 95%. It is like comparing a fly with an ox, but it is not any wonder, because it is impossible to ignore the ease of transport, flexibility and door-to-door delivery service we associate with transportation by road.
At present the real role of the railways in Europe’s economy is, unfortunately, marginal, although they receive a good deal of assistance from the taxpayer. But it is just because of this that we have to do all we can to revive rail transportation and support its gradual opening up to competition. We expect a constructive contribution from France when we set the clocks of European railway stations to the new millennium."@en1
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