Brussels, 23/07/2002 (Agence Europe) - By adopting its opinion on the "White Paper on European transport policy for 2010: time to decide" (rapporteur, Gabriel Garcia Alonso - Spanish Employers' group) at last week's plenary session, the European Economic and Social Committee has demonstrated that it does not entirely share the opinion of the Commission. Therefore, the Committee: 1) considers that the White Paper produces an, "excessively uniform treatment of the problems discussed and the solutions proposed, both on a territorial and on an economic, social, environmental and cultural level". The ESC points out that Member States and the future 27 States of the Union are different and subsequently require different approaches; 2) the EESC considers that certain measures proposed to shift the balance between modes of transport would seriously distort competition and restrict users' freedom of choice;
3) particularly stresses the right of citizens to travel, as well as the strategic importance of goods transport for countries' development and in supplying mountainous, isolated or very remote regions or areas with lower economic potential. The Committee therefore recommends that the Commission ensures that the objective of integrated transport in the context and strategy of sustainable development steers demand towards the most underused, safest and most environmentally-friendly modes of transport, with a view to achieving a more balanced modal distribution; 4) the ESC considers that with regard to the mobility of persons, the document does not take into sufficient account the role of public transport in relation to the use of private vehicles and calls for more efforts to be made to promote alternative means of transport to private road transport, rather than penalising either private road transport or buses as a means of public passenger transport.