Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-02-07-Speech-4-237"
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"en.20020207.14.4-237"2
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"Mr President, I follow Mrs Attwooll as one of the other Members for Scotland in this House. I am very grateful to Mr Watson and to the Liberal colleagues who put forward the questions which promote this debate today. It is a vital debate.
To try and make the point Mrs Attwooll was making yet more vivid, 30 miles away from the house in which I live in Edinburgh, midway between Edinburgh and Glasgow, at the town of Motherwell, lies the most northerly freight outpost of the trans-European network into the United Kingdom, the Motherwell Eurocentral depot. We have been told in recent weeks that the carrier out of that port, EWS, will not be able to afford to continue providing a service out of Scotland at the current available number of trains per day. It would be a crisis for Scotland, and therefore a crisis for transport across the Union, if that happened. It is well known, for example, that the Scotch whisky industry depends heavily on rail freight to get malt scotch and blended scotch into the European market. Heavy losses are being made on a vitally important trade.
In these circumstances it is encouraging to be told that the Commission takes this matter seriously, but it is not encouraging to be told that all will be well by June, because the information we are receiving from the commercial parties involved is that they cannot last until June at present levels.
This is a time when people throughout the European Union people are asking themselves the question: Do we obtain the benefits which we are promised from our membership of the European Union? These benefits particularly relate to the opportunity to trade freely across the Union. Other benefits which have been promised are those arising from intermodal transport – that not everything should go on the roads. That affects not just people in Scotland; it even more affects people down the motorway routes through England, if far too much heavy freight traffic goes down there. We need traffic on the railways. We also need traffic by sea. We are very grateful to Commissioner de Palacio for the work she has put into securing the new ferry link between Scotland and Zeebrugge, but if we are going to have a sensible transport policy which really does spread the load and save the roads from excessive use by heavy traffic, we must have this railway line kept open.
I am grateful to colleagues who have raised this question. I am grateful to the Commission for taking it seriously; but I want to know as well what compensation will be available to ensure that those who have lost money are not prevented from trading altogether by the uneconomic conditions now prevailing on this route."@en1
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