Quotas set for increase
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THE EUROPEAN Commission is being asked to propose a 20 per cent increase in the Community quota of international road transport licences for use in 1982, reports our Brussels correspondent.
The 20 per cent plan has been put by officials in the EEC's Transport Directorate to the Commission and is expected to be accepted.
Britain, which has been allocated 418 of the 3,827 licences approved for this year, should get a bigger increase than 20 per cent as that figure would not be applied across the board to all ten EEC countries.
For the first time, the Commission has considered other lac tors in the annual share out of licences. These are tonnage transported by each country in the EEC, each country's share in EEC trade, the utilisation rate of the quota in the preceding year, and the geographical position of each country, with special reference to the time it takes to reach the EEC's main industrial centres.
After taking these factors into account, the officials are recommending that both Britain and Ireland get slightly more than the 20 per cent average increase, but the final decision rests with EEC Transport Ministers who meet in Brussels on December 15.
West Germany, which is pushing the development of the railways system rather than road transport, has helped to block the proposed increase for this year.