THE GREAT DIVIDE
Page 5
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• Not more trouble for British drivers on the Continent? No sooner did we stop hearing about French farmers attacking British trucks than we get Spanish hauliers slashing tyres and allegedly threatening foreign drivers at knifepoint.
The reason for all the trouble? The Spanish government has refused to renegotiate subsidies for the country's hauliers so they have taken to the streets. Come to think of it, aren't French farmers complaining about subsidies too?
The French and Spanish disputes are the inevitable results of a European Community mentality that allows individual member countries to cosset industrial and agricultural 'special interest' groups with subsidies and grants.
Although Germany has been one of the most obvious examples of a well-protected domestic haulage market, it is difficult not to sympathise with the historical (and at times hysterical) calls from the German road transport trade associations for "no liberalisation without harmonisation".
Unfortunately, it's not going to be easy for any subsidised hauliers to wean themselves off financial support, and it's likely that the latest rumblings from the Spanish border are just a taste of things to come in the run-up to the Single European Market.
British operators have good reason to complain about the high levels of fuel tax and VED in the UK, but if we ever get harmonisation it's likely that they will be in a better position to handle it than many of their Continental counterparts. If Spanish hauliers think they are hard done by now, they won't know what's hit them when the promised cabotage free-for-all becomes a reality.
The most disturbing part of the Spanish haulier saga is how a small group of fanatic, and clearly violent, individuals can create so much chaos to European road transport. If Spanish drivers know they can stone a truck with impunity, why should they stop after just one?
God forbid that there should ever be such scenes in Britain, but if there were we can't see the authorities standing by as drivers are threatened at knifepoint and trucks subjected to violent and damaging attacks. It's not just the English Channel that separates us from the rest of Europe.