Brussels, 24/07/2002 (Agence Europe) - As predicted in EUROPE of 22/23 July (p.10), the Commission decided on Wednesday not to reduce the number of ecopoints to be granted to Member States for the year 2002, after considering that data provided by Austria on trips made by heavy goods vehicles in transit through its territory in 2001 was mistaken. The Commission is therefore to proceed to sharing out the million ecopoints that it was holding back until its decision was taken.
After having analysed the Austrian data (see details in the above-mentioned bulletin), the Commission felt that some of the journeys listed by Austria could not be considered as transit journeys as, for example, they were made by lorries transported by train after their arrival in Austria, lorries that carried out a bilateral journey (leaving Austria by the same border post as they had entered), and journeys for which exit data do not exist.