EEC's patience must soon be exhausted
Page 38
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
BY CHOOSING next Thursday for the General Election, and thus causing the postponement of the EEC Summit planned for next Monday, the Prime Minister may have caused her fellow heads of EEC Governments some problems. But her choice of date must have been received with rapture by the officials in the Department of Transport, since it got them off a potentially very sharp hook.
Although it would scarcely have been noticed even in the absence of a General Election, the EEC Council of Ministers of Transport is meeting on Tuesday. It is collectively in trouble with the European Parliament because of slow progress (perhaps lack of progress would be more accurate) in achieving the Common Transport Policy foreseen in the Treaty of Rome. It awaits with some trepidation the ruling of the European Court on its failure.
But Britain has a particular problem. It stems from that old favourite: lorry weights and dimensions. This has been at the heart of Britain's difficulties in Brussels since the days when John Peyton was invited to attend Council meetings in 1972, immediately before our EEC membership formally took effect.
At the December 1972 Council meeting he made it clear that Britain would not accept the agreement that the original Six had reached on this. Asa reprisal, the French insisted that our initial share of EEC permits was set at a derisory level. Hardly a good start to what was supposed to be our greatest twentieth century adventure.
After a few years things seemed to improve. It became clear in 1978 that William Rodgers realised that we could not stick permanently at a weight limit so far below those of most of our partners. It began to be whispered in the Brussels corridors, and over the dinner tables, that we only needed a little time.
Foreign Ministers of Transport showed remarkable patience while successive British Ministers agonised over a problem which had long been settled in their own countries. They waited for the Armitage inquiry to be set up, and did not complain when this was delayed by the last General Election. They waited a year for Armitage to report. Then they waited another year for a British Government response. Then they waited yet a further year for the British Government to legislate.
Each new step after Armitage had reported showed the British retreating. It was not too serious when Norman Fowler abandoned 44 tonnes without a fight, even though it was apparently done simply to score a debating point over Albert Booth. By that time the EEC was thinking of the same 40 tonnes that Norman Fowler was now promising.
Even though the next retreat, this time by David Howell to 38 tonnes, would cause problems, the reasons for it were understood. Transport Ministers in other EEC countries were politicians too. They had seep from the Tory backbench revolt that the political problems were genuine, even if they did not understand why this should be so.
But they were upset by David Howell's statement that 38 tonnes had been chosen because it was best for Britain and, moreover, it was Britain's absolute limit. They saw this as a poor reward for their patience over the years. And the size of the eventual majority ruled out the only possible acceptable excuse — namely, that these remarks were necessary in order to secure a Parliamentary majority.
That was not all. As the details of the new British limits were studied in foreign Transport Ministries, and by the RHA's • opposite numbers, it became even clearer that there were --problems going beyond the question of maximum gross weights. The retention of the 32ton limit for drawbar combinations was seen as a deliberate anti-foreign move, since foreign hauliers make more frequent use of this type of vehicle than their British counterparts.
The axle spacing requirements of the new legislation also came in for criticism. They will prevent many French hauliers from taking full advantage of the 38tonne limit.
It would be consoling to believe that the foreigners were correct, and that the new limits were indeed drawn up to protect British hauliers, who might feel they are owed something after the tax increases. But if that were so, foreign vehicles would hardly have been exempted from the sideguard requirement.
David Howell is known to be a fervent supporter of the EEC. He is also a member of a Government which is fighting the Election campaign on a proEEC policy. Many people in Brussels and national capitals ask themselves what sort of treatment they might expect from an anti-EEC Minister.
And at the Council next Tuesday they would have asked him how he saw the future of harmonisation of vehicle weights which, it surely cannot be denied, must eventually come about if the Community is to mean anything. It is one thing to take a tough foreignerbashing line at Westminster, and quite another thing to say the same thing when the victims are listening, albeit through interpreters.
Now the equivalent of the US Cavalry, in the unlikely shape of 650 Electoral Returning Officers, has appeared on the horizon. No British Minister will be sitting at the square table in Luxembourg on Tuesday. Instead a senior Civil Servant or diplomat will be able to say, with that blandness which is the hallmark of the breed: "You will understand, Mr Chairman, that I am unable to take any position on that point until after this week's General Election." And that will be that.
For the time being, that is. Because the Council will meet again next December. Whichever Party wins next week's election it seems almost certain that a new Transport Minister will be representing Britain on that occasion. He (or she — many people would like to see Lynda Chalker promoted) will have to say something.
Let us hope that the new Minister will take the opportunity to draw back a little from David Howell's negative attitude, at least to the extent of admitting that there is some room for progress. Naturally, in the best EEC tradition, Britain would want a reward in some shape or form for unblocking the problem. This might be the substantial increase in the number of EEC permits which the Commission wants to be made available. It would be entirely appropriate if the weapon used to punish us in 1972 were also used to reward us eleven years later.