Can we Risk a Business-as-usual Approach?

Can we Risk a Business-as-usual Approach?

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, bu...

Mark your diary!

Mark your diary!

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 rea...

Road Safety: Would a 30km/h Speed Limit Help?

Road Safety: Would a 30km/h Speed Limit Help?

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 insti...

Electric Cars: Formula 1 and Rolls Royce are Getting in on it

Electric Cars: Formula 1 and Rolls Royce are Getting in on it

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. When the glamorous world of Formula 1 racing starts organizing an electric Grand Prix and ultra-luxury...

Monti: Reboot Europe through the Single Market

Monti: Reboot Europe through the Single Market

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 ...

Poll: petrol-free economy

Will the EU meet its target of a petrol-free economy by 2050?
 

Poll: Eurovignette

Do you consider a single Eurovignette desirable?
 

Connect with ETF Community

     flickr-logo

Monti: Reboot Europe through the Single Market PDF Print E-mail
Monday, 17 October 2011 00:00

mario_monti

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.”

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

 

Login/Register

Free Newsletter

Be informed with regular news updates



Our Partners

deutschepostdhl_logo