Brussels, 01/07/2003 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission decided on Tuesday not to reduce the number of ecopoints to grant to the Member States for 2003, and to allocate them as planned pending the decision. According to Austrian data, 1,718,622 transit journeys took place on its territory in 2002, some 100,000 over the authorised ceiling under protocol 9 of Austria's Accession Act (which stipulates that if the total number of transit journeys carried out in the course of a year is above 108% of the total of the reference year, 1991, the number of ecopoints is reduced for the following year). Having analysed the Austrian figures, the Commission felt that some of these journeys could not be counted as transit journeys, for example, lorries having completed a bilateral journey (leaving Austria at the same border point as they entered it by), and therefore decided not to reduce the number of ecopoints.