Britain in the EEC
Page 62
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
What the owner account operators want
THE INFLUENCE of the British Parliament and domestic commercial undertakings and trade groups was inevitably diminished when Britain joined the Common Market. Purely national trade associations are of relatively little significance in bargaining with the EEC Commission at Brussels. Because of the pervasive power of the Brussels administrators of the ninenation community, trade representations really need to be conducted by European bodies.
The transport committee of the Union of the Industrial Federations of the EEC (UNICE), of which the Confederation of British Industries is the UK member, represents the industrial users, as opposed to the providers, of transport in each of the nine member States. The Freight Transport Association has an influential voice in helping to shape UNICE transport policy. No one who has followed recent expressions of British transport opinion will be surprised to learn that the UNICE committee has now urged the EEC Commission to reconsider Transport Policy.
Less theory The committee urges that a less theoretical approach to transport matters should be adopted with concentration on promoting international transport in order to facilitate trade between member States, and to increase the Community's competitiveness. British industrial transport users, seeking the maximum liberalization of world transport and the minimum harmonization for purely theoretical reasons of national transport policies in the short and medium term welcome the UNICE's policy statement, says the CBI in a recent press notice.
The transport committee of UNICE point out that the accession of three new countries marks the beginning of a new era in Europe and the Community's problems will change not only in size and structure, but also in character.
Although the Community's efforts in the transport sphere have been numerous, with voluminous documentation, the committee suggest that the development of the Common Transport Policy has been slow and its results very diffuse. Several Regulations on very different subjects have been adopted, in such a way that they appear unconnected one with the other, and lacking a common conception.
The committee tries to explain the relative failure of EEC transport policy: first, it points to the Rome Treaty's preoccupation with remedying distortions of competition in the transport sector by appropriate and limited interventions to promote liberalization of intracommunity trade and transport. Secondly, there was a more global conception of possible objectives, ie the harmonization of national transport regimes in order to achieve a total integration of community transport.
Major obstacles The second conception, in the view of the UNICE committee, prevailed. This policy had met with major obstacles, often said to be insurmountable, such as the following:—
a the use of transport by States as instruments of economic and social policy. Every measure proposed by the Commission which might disturb existing transport systems incurred the opposition of one or other of the States concerned; b the diversity from country to country of the different modes of transport, and their relative importance. In some countries railways are preponderant, in others roads or waterways have a leading role. Even within one mode, such as railways, the division of traffic between passenger and freight varies between countries — a situation which could lead to the promotion of a rail policy favouring passengers in one case and goods transport in another. Hence divergent attitudes of member States; c the inequality, at the national level, of the financial burden of the infrastructure or of the weight of deficit of the railway companies.
While, for certain modes of transport, a satisfactory infrastructure exists, in others transport networks may require expensive investment. Railways can be heavily in deficit or almost viable financially. Often the solution to transport problems involves national financial policies. How, in these conditions, can Community solutions be substituted for the national solutions that special situations impose on each country?
d The committee refers to the striking example of the institution of obligatory bilateral road tariffs as an example of inappropriate measures in terms of the objectives pursued. Conceived originally
to ensure the transparency of the market and to harmonize competition between transporters in member States, these tariffs have not achieved their objectives.
If account is taken of the differences in conditions of application between countries, of the inequalities in the economic situation of the hauliers and of the differences in the cost structures, the application of the bilateral tariffs has in fact accentuated the distortions.
Against the background of this profit and loss account the questions which now face the responsible authorities are, first, the effect on EEC transport policies of the entry of the three new member countries and, secondly, whether the orientation of policy should be changed.
The UNICE memorandum says intracommunity transport will no longer be essentially land-based; the national transport systems of Britain and Ireland will retain, to a substitute degree, their own peculiarities.
UK more liberal In the UK there is a preponderance of road transport, no distinction between transport for own-account and transport for hire and reward; a very liberal government attitude but a dominant preoccupation with road safety and environmental protection.
Ireland, in contrast, has a very "dirigiste" transport policy with a State-owned transport company enjoying a dominant position in transport for hire and reward. Although in Denmark the existing transport policy is liberal, a draft law is pending which would restrict access to the market — a notion new to Denmark and at variance with the desires and wishes of industrial enterprise.
UNICE urges no constraints on entry to the transport market with freedom of transit for community and own account traffic. The Common Transport Policy should aim to remove all obligatory tariffs for road transport, and minimize waiting times and formalities at frontiers.
Decision on weights On the social level, transport measures should be limited to those required for safety, whilst to promote transport liberalization community standards for weights and dimensions of commercial road vehicles and fiscal action to eliminate disparities in the taxes should be agreed.