Kinnock to be EU transport chief
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• Former Labour leader Neil Kinnock has become the most powerful figure in European road transport politics.
Kinnock officially takes up the European Union Transport Commissioner's five-year post in January. It gives him responsibility for road transport policies—including large-scale road and railway building plans.
Kinnock has already made it clear that he wants to see greater investment in rail. After the announcement in Luxembourg he said: "For reasons of economic cost and energy conservation we need to encourage greater use of envi ronmentally friendly means of transport, such as rail and other means of mass transit. And we need to work towards ensuring that each mode of transport makes a realistic contribution to paying for the use of the environment."
But hauliers may take comfort from his pledge to promote "fair competition between operators". He also said that he wanted to speed up the development of trans-European transport networks within the enlarged European Union and in central and Eastern Europe.
Kinnock will replace Marcelino Oreja of Spain. Oreja's second in command, Robert Coleman of Britain, will remain as director-general of transport directorate DGVII.