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Speaking at the European Commission High-level Conference on the future of the European transport system, hosted by the European Commission Vice President Antonio Tajani and the Swedish Presidency, ECG President, Costantino Baldissara, called on the European Commission for “co-modality” to stay as the basis of a Common European Transport Policy given that sea shipping, road transport and rail are complementary to each other in our sector. He explained that the future of transport must reflect the needs of operators, explaining that a way to do this was by harmonising the loaded length of trucks to 20.75. Baldissara highlighted that the possible financial savings to the community from the impact of CO2, air pollution damages, noise, accident risk and congestion would equate to around €50 billion.
He also encouraged the Commission’s efforts to support scrapping schemes and extend them to all modes of transport and to ban old and substandard ships. ECG also called on the Commission for investments on modal connectivity; a European dedicated freight rail infrastructure; harmonization of IT standards to improve communication between different modalities and carriers in the supply chain; and more space in ports. ECG President finalized his intervention highlighting the importance of the Finished Vehicle Logistics industry as a key component and an integrated part of the automotive industry.
The event aimed at identifying the policy measures stakeholders would like to see in the next Commission's White Paper on transport covering the decade 2010 to 2020. The conference brought together over 500 stakeholders from the main European Institutions, National transport authorities, industry associations, transport operators, national, regional and local authorities, academics, and other interest groups. The conference's discussion touched upon the key policy objectives of the Future of Transport Communication. These include the development of a multimodal and fully integrated TENT network; an alternative fuels’ policy; the deployment of innovative transport vehicles and technologies and the key position of transport users and workers as the main actors of tomorrow's transport system.
Vice-President Antonio Tajani said the future transport policy should reflect the main objectives Europe is pursuing today and in the years ahead: decarbonisation of transport, advancing people’s Europe and boosting new sources of growth and competitiveness, highlighting that importance will be given to the creation of green corridors, the creation of a dedicated fund for transport in the broad sense of the word or the formation of a core network of TEN-T projects.
Following the conference and the forthcoming Council conclusions due in December 2009, the Commission will start to work on concrete measures to shape Europe's future transport policy. In 2001, the Commission issued a White Paper setting an agenda for the European transport policy until 2010.
Approaching the end of this ten-year period, a new Transport White Paper is due to be adopted in the second semester of 2010.
ECG has already provided comments to the Commission’s Communication on the European Transport Policy from 2010-2020 and will follow any developments in the future work on this issue.
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