Belgian MEP Saïd El Khadraoui, who sits on the European Parliament’s Transport Committee, tells the ETF that there are many paths for Europe in its quest for a sustainable transport system.

He says he became involved in transport issues because of its vast reach. “It is about almost everything,” he says. “It is about the economy, sustainability, workers conditions, passenger rights – so many elements and components – and that makes it interesting and exciting.”

As the transport coordinator for the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D) in the European Parliament, the 34-year-old Khadraoui plays a key role in all transport related issues at the European level. He expects 2010 will be a major year for transport: the European Commission will release its Transport White Paper, and transport will be at the heart of ongoing discussions on climate change, social issues, workers’ and passenger rights.

And he is clear about the most important transport challenge facing Europe: creating a sustainable transport system. “This should be a low carbon transport system,” he says. “There is no single, wonder solution. We need to combine different ideas, including investing in research and development to create better, less polluting engines. We also need regulations to set up limits for cars, light vehicles and trucks with the Euro-norms.”

El Khadraoui underlines that more sustainable vehicles lower the costs – and he wants the European Union to play a bigger role in this area. But overall, he says the EU needs a more efficient multimodal platform. This is not an easy task, he admits. “You need a vision, policy and resources, both at European and national level,” he says. “There are existing programs like Marco Polo, which funds projects shifting freight transport from the road to sea, rail and inland waterways, but they are too bureaucratic.”

While he aims to reduce road transport, El Khadraoui recognizes that all modes will be necessary and, for example, some goods will never be transported by rail. “It’s an issue of efficiency of sustainability to create these inter-modal platforms, where you can transfer goods from a truck to a ship and from a ship to a train and so on,” El Khadraoui says.“The market share of road transport is high, and the market will grow faster than the economy. At some point, we are either stuck in traffic, or we try to find solutions by investing in infrastructure. So we need to look at how to combine transport modes to create sustainable mobility, with issues like inter-modality: the EU should invest cleverly in multi-modal platforms".

"It is a combination of all kinds of measures.”

Saïd El Khadraoui, Member of European Parliament