Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-07-10-Speech-2-440"
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"en.20070710.59.2-440"2
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".
Mr President, the report has a promising title: 'Keep Europe moving – sustainable mobility for our continent'. The clearest statement in Mrs Barsi-Pataky's report is in paragraph 14: 'the mid-term review of the Transport White Paper 2001 has not laid down long-term objectives nor given answers'. The EU's transport policy is riddled with inconsistencies. Many good principles are correctly identified, but often are not put into practice.
The report makes it clear that the negative effects of climate change have increased, not least as a result of a bad transport policy. Many people still believe that growth is a constant: ever faster, ever higher, ever further. Growth may be sustainable, but is not a good thing. Incessant growth will not achieve the Kyoto targets, and the aim of halving CO2 emissions by 2050 will remain a pipe dream.
Often we only treat the symptoms, not the cause of the evil. Satu Hassu from the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy has already cited various examples. We have been afraid to tell the whole truth about the costs. We want to build new, ridiculously expensive high-speed train tracks while the existing tracks, in Italy for example, are rusting away. Air traffic emissions are not included in the CO2 calculations, and transport is being promoted all over Europe.
Let us look at a very real, topical event: today in Vienna, the transport ministers from Italy, Austria and Germany have again happily declared their commitment to the Brenner Base Tunnel. The economic viability of the Brenner Base Tunnel is very dubious in the light of our experience with the Channel Tunnel. The finance comes from Member States who are already contravening the Maastricht criteria, which puts it on a very shaky footing. Some of the approach sections have not even been planned. It really is a massive white elephant. There is talk of transferring goods traffic to rail, yet the plans are for a high-speed passenger line.p
The objectives of a socially acceptable and environmentally-friendly transport policy need to be: reducing unnecessary traffic flows, moving to more environmentally-friendly transport methods, being honest about the cost – which means transport prices must include all the costs of construction, maintenance, addressing environmental and health problems, and the cost of accidents – and sustainable taxation of transport based on CO2 emissions, including, most importantly, for air traffic."@en1
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