European ministers call for gradual integration of environmental costs of road transport
Meeting in an informal meeting in La Rochelle, European transport ministers confronted their positions on several subjects and favored only a gradual and voluntary internalisation of the environmental costs of road transport.
Dominique Bussereau, French Secretary of State for Transport, brought together during the last two days the transport ministers of the European Union as well as their counterparts from Norway, Switzerland, Morocco and Tunisia. Organized in La Rochelle, this informal council was an opportunity for the ministers to confront their positions on several topics being negotiated in the EU bodies.
Encourage initiatives in urban transport
In the perspective of the action plan on urban mobility to be published by the European Commission in the near future, the ministers stressed the need to support and encourage, at European level, all the initiatives of local and regional authorities in favor of urban transport more respectful of the environment. The creation of a resource center dedicated to this subject was mentioned. It could make it possible to share the different experiences carried out by the European authorities and to present the statistics in this field and the different legislations in force. Ministers also expressed the wish to create a European market for clean urban vehicles, they say, to help manufacturers to set new standards that can prevail at the global level.
A progressive and voluntary internalization of costs
But the ministers were mainly interested in the revision of the "Eurovignette" directive on the taxation of heavy goods vehicles for the use of certain infrastructures. In its green transport package presented last July, the European Commission proposed to include in the cost of transport the nuisance they cause.
Moue pout ... it will take taxes to offset the economic advantage of road transport ... And then there is even no serious technological alternatives in many cases then ... then tax to tax what to good? It is the consumer who will pay the bill in the end.