Common policy 'vital'
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A COMMON transport policy was a vital part of the integration of the European Community as a whole, declared Sir Peter Kirk (Tory, Saffron Walden) in the Commons last week.
There was, he noted, still no common policy, although the treaty had called for one, and he criticised a Government White Paper on Europe for totally ignoring this fact.
This document, which deals with European developments between last November and April of this year, had only two short paragraphs about transport, one dealing with drivers' hours and the other with the operation of the freight market.
Sir Peter asked for information about the progress of transport negotiations, but Mr John Tomlinson, Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office, was not able to tell him a great deal.
Much of this country's concern had been with pre-accession agreements on such matters as tachographs and drivers' hours, which were accepted under the Treaty of Accession, he said. We wanted to sort these out before we went any further.
We were, of course, resisting the understanding reached among the Six on lorry weights, added Mr Tomlinson, but no new agreement was yet in sight.