Brussels lobby needed
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• A group of international hauliers is calling for a powerful lobby to be set up in Brussels to fight for the road transport industry in the EC.
The proposal was made at last week's meeting of the Road Haulage Association's international group and is likely to receive the backing of the RHA.
The lobby would monitor the EC Commission and try to influence its proposals for legislation governing road transport. It would be funded by the RHA and other Community hauliers' associations.
The RHA and the Freight Transport Association are already members of the Genevabased International Road Transport Union, which has a Brussels office. But international group members say that the IRU's small staff have to devote too much time to non-EC matters, such as buses in South America.
Retiring international group chairman Geoffrey Cave-Wood says that the idea is at "concep tion rather than birth" stage, but adds that hauliers want a "strong voice in Brussels looking after their interests".
New chairman Paul Frampton, of Shepton Mallet-based Framptons International, supports the idea of European trade associations co-operating to have "an effective influence over transport policy makers in Brussels, whatever that takes". Ian Rycroft, of EC Transport, Wimbourne, Dorset says that hauliers' associations should "recast the IRU and do it ourselves".
But he worries about support for an extra levy from the grass roots RHA membership: "There is a lack of upward pressure," he says. "Too many people bleat about a law after it has come in."