ESC Opinion: Green paper on the impact of transport on the environment
An Opinion adopted by the Economic and Social Committee (299th plenary session, 23.9.1992) concerns the Commission's Green Paper on the impact of transport on the environment: A Community strategy for "sustainable mobility" (COM(92) 46 of 20.2.1992). The Green Paper assesses the impact of transport on the environment and proposes a global approach designed to achieve sustainable mobility which will enable transport to continue to fulfil its economic and social role whilst limiting the harmful effects on the environment. The Committee's overall assessment of the Green Paper welcomes its specific aim to initiate public debate on measures to be taken to achieve sustainable mobility. However, the Committee deplores the considerable delay in adopting this approach. It is also regrettable that the large number of earlier documents submitted by the Commission in the field of transport have not been more effectively incorporated into the document under review. Despite these criticisms, the Committee notes that the new departure in the Green Paper is not so much its substance but rather the overall Community-wide approach. The desire to achieve sustainable mobility has, for the first time, led to a general appraisal of all the fields concerned. This step gives grounds for hope that the future EC transport policy will finally accept its full responsibility -neglected in the past- at any rate in key transport sectors, in many cases the sectors in which transport is most environment-friendly. The ESC takes up a large number of specific points in the body of the Opinion, discussing institutional matters, the need for a Community approach and the origins of the problem (transport versus environment crisis). Proposed strategies for attaining sustainable mobility include, inter alia, standardization and RTD, and the Commission is called on to establish a concerted action in the field of transport research.