Court threat afte
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*mit farce Heavy truck traffic
• Europe's transport ministers have again failed to agree on a new share-out of the EEC's multi-lateral international journey permits — and they have been threatened with legal action by transport commiss:oner Stanley Clinton Davis.
At the end of an eight-hour meeting in Brussels last week he told the ministers that their inability to reach a consensus was "a deeply disappointing result" and warned that legal action could well follow: "The European Court of Justice said in 1985 that restrictions between member countries in inland transport should be eliminated within a reasonable time," said Clinton Davis. "That was two-and-a-half years ago. The court might regard another five years as an excessively long time for implementing that judgement."
As before it was the Germans who led the blockage in Brussels, having rallied support from the French and the Italian ministers. Hopes earlier in the week that progress could be made at the second ministers' meeting within a month were soon dashed. Brussels had been planning to increase the number of community permits by 40% a year up to 1992, boosting the number of licences from 11,535 to 62,094.
The German argument is that their hauliers pay more tax than their foreign rivals and more freedom is impossible until the conditions of competition throughout Europe have been harmonised.
Clinton Davis told the minis ters that he plans to draft a taw which will harmonise vehicle taxes and road tolls by Christmas, and that his directive would establish an EEC framework for charging road track costs which will keep national policies in line. He is also planning to make a statement on action to catch offenders who break the law in this field, and two detailed regulations will be submitted in the new year.'
Within 12 hours of the ministers meeting, the transport committee of UNICE — the European equivalent of the Confederation of British Industry — also gathered in Brussels and unanimously called for action from the politicians. Freight Transport Association director general Garry Turvey attended the UNICE meeting and said that the German, French and Italian delegations all shared the sense of frustration.
He said that the industrialists and businessmen of Europe have an attitude to progress in Europe which "is in stark contrast to decisions being taken by elected ministers to their countries".