Brussels, 10/04/2014 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission is holding up a mirror so that member states can evaluate their respective performances in the transport arena. On Thursday 10 April, the Commission presented, for the first time, a scoreboard that assesses country by country and mode by mode the progress made in terms of infrastructure, environment, safety, research and logistics, transposition of legislation and the number of infringements committed.
Reference point. The Netherlands and Germany are the most often the highest performers in these categories, followed by Sweden, the United Kingdom and Denmark. Greece, Bulgaria and Poland are the countries most lagging behind. The Commission also highlights the areas where more effort needs to be made, such as in road safety, opening up the railway market or disparities in performances by the ports. These areas have been taken into account in the recent legislative proposals by the European Commission. Although European Commissioner for Transport Siim Kallas admits that the scoreboard only provides a snapshot of the situation, it “gives us and member states a point of reference and a source of inspiration for our work together”.
Tackling infringements. The average level for transposing European legislation in the transport field is 96%, as opposed to 98% for the internal market in general. According to Commission sources, this is a rather convincing score, which can be attributed to infringement procedures at the European Court of Justice which, according to the same sources, are supported by Commissioner Kallas. 202 infringement procedures are currently underway and the commissioner has not refused any others. A raft of significant infringements involving the Functional Airspace Blocks (FABS) of the Single European Sky are also planned. (MD)