FTA unveils 1992 plan
Page 8
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
• The Freight Transport Association has launched a "blueprint for action" to help hauliers prepare for the common marketplace Europe wants to introduce in 1992.
According to the FTA's international transport and distribution director Jack Welsh, the new advice booklet — Freight transport and the single market — will "help forwardlooking exporters and distribution companies meet the challenge of 1992".
He says that the association is also working to "achieve a liberal, fair and competitive transport market by 1992 through the gradual and progressive elimination of existing obstacles. We have identified what still needs to be done, and we believe that in order to give industry the confidence to prepare for 1992, member states need to start backing up their words with deeds, and accelerate the rate at which essential proposals are adopted".
Welsh says that the FTA is confident that "a fair head of steam for 1992" has now built up in Europe and the association's main fear remains that "a nonsense" will result with "a single trading market, which has physical distribution in that market supported by 12 different transport regimes".
"Not everything will be in place by 1992," says Welsh, "but we have more confidence now than a year ago that something will be able to go ahead."
On the thorny issue of cabotage — point-to-point haulage in one country carried out by a haulier from another country — the FTA believes that the European Commission now wants to face and solve the problem.
Until recently, says the association, the Commission and the Council of Transport ministers preferred to shelve the question.
FTA members can get the advice booklet free from their local office and non-members can buy the publication for including postage and packing, from: WFA, Hermes House, St John's Road, Tunbridge Wells, Kent, TN4 9UZ, °