Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-02-11-Speech-2-155"
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"en.20030211.7.2-155"2
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"Mr President, Madam Vice-President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, greatly though I respect Mr Caveri, I do not share his view that the proposal we are about to vote on is a very balanced one; at any rate, he does not take sufficient account of Austria's interests. It is not, though, as an Austrian that I am disappointed by what we have in front of us, but as someone who has an especial concern for the environment. I believe that we are right to start from the belief that we can achieve a lasting solution on transport, and, indeed, that we have to work on the basis of that assumption. It just happens to be the case that transit traffic presents a particular problem, bringing as it does practically no benefits to the country, but a great deal of expense and environmental damage in its wake.
Despite that, I join with all the other speakers today in agreeing that we have to achieve an all-round and lasting solution applicable to all HGVs that pollute to the relevant degree. I agree with the Member who said that we may well want environmentally friendly HGVs, but they do not yet exist; we know perfectly well that the Euro-4 lorry is scarcely yet on the market, and that is another reason why we need a transitional regulation. Here and now, we say in the clearest terms that what we need is a transitional regulation! Yes, indeed, the railways have to be developed, but, my dear Mrs Peijs, in 2000, on the Brenner route alone, 36 million tonnes of freight capacity were going free – and nothing has changed since then. Railways are not being used to their fullest capacity. The simple fact is that, so long as there is no proper system of tolls, they are too expensive. There is one Member who has given it as his opinion that it is unfair to impose conditions applicable only to Austria. We are ready and willing to stand in solidarity alongside the other regions of this continent, but it is surely not acceptable that only the Swiss are in a position to levy an appropriate toll and invest the money in tunnels. We are also ready and willing – and I am unreservedly in favour of this – to make an earlier start on building the Brenner base tunnel, but we must have the means of financing it. If, on the one hand, we fail to make the finance available whilst, on the other, asserting the need for railways to be developed, yet not even using them when they have been for lack of the necessary incentives, then the whole system cannot work.
We very much hope that the transport infrastructure costs directive will come into being, but I am already curious as to what the debate on it will involve and can see a number of people here in the Chamber who will say that environmental costs also have to be taken into consideration, that they do not add up to much, and that we have to be very careful with cross-subsidies. I can already see the amendments to the next Izquierdo Collado report, in which a commitment will be made to cross-financing – at least in principle. But our Members from the Group of the European People's Party are already rejecting the idea of following the Swiss example, as taking account of the environment in that way is too radical for them. This leads me to believe that we should not only be doing united lip-service to sustainable development, but should also be creating the instruments for it. We know all too well that an environmentally-focussed transport policy is one of the essential instruments for bringing about sustainable development in Europe. So, rather than this being a special arrangement for Austria, it may be that our country is playing the part of an outrider, a role we will abandon only when an alternative is available to us, although we are willing to campaign for an alternative and to make full use of it."@en1
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