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Thursday, 23 February 2012 16:18 |
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How serious are we about Connecting Europe?
Despite numerous efforts over the decades, the European Union is still unable to say it truly has a single market in transport. Whether by road, rail, water or air, the European transport system is still struggling with obstacles to reach a smoothly functioning EU internal transport market.
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Europe lacks adequate physical interconnections across borders. Public investment in transport is often stuck behind rather than across national frontiers. This is felt especially when it comes to the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) of core roads, railway lines, shipping and aviation routes and transport infrastructure.
So what can be done to finish the job and create a Single European Transport Area?
The European Transport Forum (ETF) will debate this question at its annual meeting in Brussels on October 16, 2012. Policy-makers, executives, analysts, interest group leaders and other transport experts will gather for a brainstorming set of discussions on what Europe needs to do to complete the Single European Transport Area.
The ETF event will be organized around two panel debates:
• The first panel will focus on the crucial role transport infrastructure plays in reviving economic growth in Europe. The Trans-European Transport Networks (TEN-T) and the proposed Connecting Europe Facility for project finance will be key components. But are national governments really ready to provide the financing needed? And when can we expect concrete results?
• The second panel will look at how infrastructure investment can allow us to relieve congestion in and around cities, and fill in the missing links in the European transport system. In this context, should the EU try to prioritize any transport modes? Can co-modality improve transport efficiency and contribute to the EU’s growth and prosperity? And how can innovation in infrastructure help make journeys safer, quicker and cleaner?
As the transport agenda grows ever more complex and ambitious, the European Transport Forum has become the crucial arena for debate on the key issues facing the sector.
Join us, and join the conversation at the European Transport Forum, where you can make your voice heard as Europe debates its transport challenges. |
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Can we Risk a Business-as-usual Approach? |
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Thursday, 23 February 2012 16:18 |
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The European Union must upgrade its transport infrastructure and improve its transport policies if it wants to revive its economy: that was the message from the European Transport Forum, held in Brussels on October 18 last year.
Transport may not be the highest priority today, but it deserves far more attention from policy makers as it holds the key to Europe’s prosperity, the Forum agreed.
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The Forum gathered some 200 top European officials, MEPs, captains of industry and other key transport players. Malcolm Harbour, the Chairman, of the European Parliament’s Internal Market Committee said the EU had to find ways to improve transport infrastructure “because they will last a lifetime of several governments or commissions.” Fellow British MEP Brian Simpson, the Chairman of the Parliament’s Transport and Tourism Committee, said, “We cannot afford not to go forward. Transport delivers growth, and now is the time to plan so that when the good times roll, we are ready.”
Why is this important?
A Single European Transport Area is essential for the single European internal market, helping to reduce costs while increasing efficiency and sustainability for the entire European industry.
Efficient transport is vital for the free movement of citizens and goods, a sustainable European arena and the competitiveness of our industries and society welfare.
The aim should be to reduce transport’s negative effects while maintaining transport itself. We need to improve infrastructure finance and TEN-Ts, intelligent transport, logistics solutions for all modes and co-modality based on a cost/benefit approach.
We need a clear and ambitious policy timetable with concrete measures and a master strategy that can overcome national and regional differences!
Partnering in the European Transport Forum, both Volvo Group and Deutsche Post DHL joined forces to establish a European Transport Charter.
full article |
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Road Safety: Would a 30km/h Speed Limit Help? |
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Tuesday, 21 February 2012 06:30 |
| Does the key to road safety lie in something as simple as a strict speed limit? That appears to be the suggestion from the European Parliament where a 30km/h speed limit is being proposed for residential areas. As the European Union’s latest road safety plan winds its way through the institutions, it raises a long-standing question about whether speed really is the big road killer. |
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How can policy help save lives that would needlessly have been lost in road accidents? Is it by communicating the dangers to drivers, enforcing penalties on offenders, stigmatizing drunk-driving, improving public transport….or all of those measures in moderation?
Europe has been working on that issue for over a decade: it was in 2000 that the EU’s Road Safety Action Plan was launched, with the aim of halving road deaths over the course of the decade through a variety of measures. While the programme missed the target, it was close enough, managing a respectable cut of 44% from 54,302 in 2001 to around 30,400 in 2010 [related article: The Medicin Seems to be Working]. In July last year, the European Commission unveiled a follow-up plan, which again set a target of halving road deaths, and again involved a combination of measures [related article: How the Commission Plans to Halve Road Deaths].
full article
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Electric Cars: Formula 1 and Rolls Royce are Getting in on it |
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Monday, 20 February 2012 00:00 |
| A revealing shift is taking place in the motoring sector, representing a potential tipping point for electric vehicles, and the European Union is at the heart of this change. |
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When the glamorous world of Formula 1 racing starts organizing an electric Grand Prix and ultra-luxury carmaker Rolls Royce rolls out an electric vehicle, you know that something has changed for the once-maligned electric car.
Some time ago, the European Commission asked Formula One’s governing body, the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) to set up a racing championship series for electric cars, as a way of increasing public awareness and excitement about new-technology vehicles. It represents a key moment for electric vehicles, raising the prospect of an F1-style electric car championship on Grand Prix circuits. EU Industry Commissioner Antonio Tajani, who is pushing EU member countries to increase public adoption of electric cars, said he hoped the event would use F1’s media muscle to stir consumers’ interest in electric vehicles. The project fits into Mr Todt’s strategy for getting the teams of F1 and other motorsport series to embrace hybrid and electronic technology, and to use the global reach of F1 to foster better public understanding of issues such as green energy and road safety.
full article
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Monti: Reboot Europe through the Single Market |
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Monday, 17 October 2011 00:00 |
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Europe’s single market was never completed and key sectors including transport are hampered by national barriers, warns EU elder statesman Mario Monti. In an exclusive interview with the European Transport Forum, Monti – a former EU Commissioner - urges policymakers to refocus their energies on finishing the job they promised when they first launched the Single Market programme in the 1980's.
Mario Monti: "The EU Single Market is a grey area of thousands of small bits and pieces, none of which is sexy or attracts a high level of political attention.”
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Mario Monti seems naturally suited to be president of the prestigious Bocconi University in Milan, the institution where he first earned a degree in economics and management, and where he later became a rector. He is, to all appearances, a classic academic, with his soft-spoken, professorial manner.
But he also has a keen political eye and a steely toughness: from 1995 to 2005, Monti held two of the most influential positions in European policy-making, firstly as a highly regarded EU Single Market Commissioner, and then as an equally respected Competition Commissioner. And today, though he is far from the Brussels bubble, Monti is keen to deliver a stiff political message to European leaders about their unfinished business when it comes to his old portfolio, the Single Market. “The single market has never been as unpopular in Europe as it is now,” he says. “At the same time, it has never been so necessary. That is why it requires a huge political investment from the European institutions and from national leadership.”
full article |
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