EC boss calls for higher truck duty
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• Road transport customers should pay higher haulage rates to encourage them to move freight from congested roads on to rail, says European Transport Commissioner Karel van Miert.
A White Paper which is due to be published by the Commission before the end of the year could include suggestions for raising dery duty and VED to the UK level, currently the highest in the Community.
Increasing levels of traffic on Europe's roads could spark a crisis, van Miert told a panEuropean transport conference in Prague last week.
The Freight Transport Association says van Miert's proposals are "academic nonsense that won't work". Adding to the cost of moving goods by road would have unacceptable social, economic and environmental consequences, it says. But the Road Haulage Association says trucks are not primarily to blame for congestion: "What about cars?" it says.
El Truck traffic should be halved within 15 years and dery prices doubled within six years, according to a Green Party report published this week.
To achieve a 60% reduction in CO2 emissionsby 2005, it says the current road programme should be scrapped and massive subsidies poured into rail and water transport expansion, including the conversion of the existing rail network to accommodate continental-gauge freight trains.
The Green Party wants to scrap vehicle excise duty and slap an environmental tax on derv, taking the price to 90p/lit by 1997.