Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-01-12-Speech-1-138"
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"en.20090112.15.1-138"2
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"Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission, which you, Mrs Vassiliou, are a part of, has announced the publication of its Action Plan on Urban Mobility several times. The plan was due to be submitted to the Council and Parliament last autumn. The Commission made this commitment at the conclusion, last March, of the consultation on the Green Paper on Urban Mobility, which was launched in 2007, and again in the 2007 Freight Transport Logistics Action Plan, and in its Communication on a strategy for the internalisation of external costs and transport in 2008.
Time has passed, but the action plan is yet to see the light of day. As we near the end of the current legislative term, the Committee on Transport and Tourism, which I represent, is concerned that much of the work put in over the last few years may come to nothing. Can you reassure me, Commissioner, that the action plan is ready? Can you tell me that it will be made public in the next few weeks, to enable Parliament to finalise its recommendations, as contained in the Rack resolution ‘Towards a new culture for urban mobility’, passed by this House in July 2008?
Mrs Vassiliou, urban mobility is without doubt an issue affecting the local, and on which local competence will always take precedence over national or Community competence, but that does not mean that it should be tackled without any state or Community intervention whatsoever. Who if not the European Union can and should define the Community’s role in this? Who can and should interpret the limits imposed by the principle of subsidiarity in this field?
The Commission’s – and therefore the EU’s – evasion of this subject does nothing to help solve the problem of urban transport and citizens’ mobility, nor the problems of air pollution in cities – we know that 40% of CO
emissions are caused by urban transport and that 70% of other transport pollutants are urban. Nor does it help the problems of road safety – we know that 50% of fatal accidents take place in cities – nor those relating to the production of consumers, less able citizens, whose mobility is dependent on public transport.
Can we accept that there should be differences between Member States? Between cities, in standards of protection for the urban environment? In road safety standards in cities? In standards of citizens’ access to mobility? Or are they not fundamental rights that the Union should help to guarantee for all Europeans? Well then, we need to establish standards and uniform minimum objectives, but also best practices and financial incentives. We need coordination and innovative projects, and to develop and share reliable and comparable statistics.
If the Union takes it on, will this not help in realising those subsidiary solutions that Member States and local communities have every right to be protective of? Mrs Vassiliou, it may be that you are about to give us a list of good reasons for the delay, and even the failure to present the Action Plan on Urban Mobility. If you want to try and defend the failure to keep this commitment, before you do so, ask yourself – are these genuine reasons and not banal excuses? Do not contribute, Mrs Vassiliou, to the idea – which has become popular recently – that the Commission has become so afraid of disturbing the Member States that it has given up on solving Europeans’ problems. It would be a suicidal move for an institution such as the Commission that has not been strengthened by the French Presidency’s successful term.
Delivery, delivery, delivery: that is what European citizens want, and for that reason alone they are ready, I believe, or they could be, to look on our institutions with a more friendly eye. The small example of the urban mobility plan could be a real help in addressing this much larger problem."@en1
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