Brussels, 22/06/2011 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 21 June, the members of the committee on transport of the European Parliament held an exchange of views on the White Paper entitled “Roadmap to a Single European Transport Area - Towards a competitive and resource-efficient transport system”. This White Paper was presented in March of this year by the European Commission. In September, Mathieu Grosch (EPP, Belgium) will present his draft report on this dossier.
Whilst welcoming the White Paper, the rapporteur, Grosch, said that he wanted it to contain concrete objectives for the short term as well, on the basis of the next 10 years rather than just between now and 2050. Grosch went on to say that he supported the opening-up of the market, but not at any price. He spoke in favour of avoiding dumping practices or “selling off European values”. He wondered what had become of the objectives referred to in previous White Papers, and why these objectives had not been reached or had been sidelined in the latest White Paper.
The various political groups of the EP supported Grosch's comments and consider at this stage that overall the Commission's document is a good working framework. They also reiterated the enormous financial efforts required by the objectives of the White Paper, therefore calling for particular attention to be paid to the specific tools which can be set in place to make this possible. Some MEPs asked, as did certain delegations at the recent Transport Council, for specific regional characteristics to be taken into account and for some level of flexibility in implementing the initiatives.