The European Union and the Transport Policy - Research Paper Example

?The EU and the Transport Policy Introduction Major changes are taking place throughout the world brought in by the increasing population, technologyadvancement, increasing income, more calls for entertainment and an increasing number of people attaining old age. The above factors need development and modification of the transport system to accommodate them. Additionally, goods to be transported needs a system of transport which can accommodate them. A transport system is vital to the economy because various markets will be accessed by use of available transport networks. Furthermore, the creation of one market or single market like the EU needs a well developed transport industry. Policies play an important role in shaping a transport industry which will increase the economy of the countries involved. The EU Transport Policy The policy adopted by the EU seeks to find ways of creation of an economical transport sector so that it can curve in major challenges in the industry like road congestion, barriers to transport systems and emission of green house gases such CO2. Additionally, the policy helps in the creation of infrastructure for the transport industry, investment in the industry and innovation. Furthermore the use of fossil fuels by the machines in the transport sector is also addressed by the policy. The policy was meant to tackle challenges facing EU nations with regard to the transport sector like road congestion and cross-border tariffs. This paper will address the policies made by the EU for the transport industry and the achievements they have made since the creation of such policies (Rodenburg et al 2002). The European countries came together with policies for transport systems such as roads, rail and inland waterways. The EU common markets pushed for a common transport policy because they encouraged free movement of goods and people throughout Europe. The policy signed in 1957 called the treaty of Rome was meant to allow free movement of goods and people across all the nations in Europe but the policy was not taken seriously until 1980 (Ionescu, 2012). The policy was only put into use after a court process which took place in 1983 involving the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers. This increased the process of the formation of a single market involving European countries with the inclusion of transport in the act which was signed. Ionescu (2012), shows that the signing of the single treaty made many changes in the transport industries which also gave a chance for Europeans countries to work together across different states. The treaty signed was also meant to address cases of environmental degradation caused by pollution. The policy was for the development of rail, road and waterway structures. This is because there had been disparities in transport systems in European countries with most Western countries having better and well developed transport systems, mostly high-speed rail systems, than that of the Eastern European countries. Furthermore the policy was made to address environmental challenges as mentioned above. The main target of the policy was to address the development of the rail system, roads and waterways. The combination of the three transport systems is referred to as the Transport European Networks (TENs). The European Union transport policy was made to tackle the creation of transport infrastructure which would link Eastern and Western Europe. This was later addressed in a white paper singed in 2004. The policies in the white paper were later changed in 2011 to make three changes by 2050. For example, the EU is to stop the use of more fossil fuel and find alternative energy, increase the use of the rail system, and use fuel in the aviation industry producing less than 40% carbon. The policy was meant to ease movement of freight and people across national boundaries hence the border tariffs would be removed (Ionescu 2012). The EU is committed in applying the set policies and has so far achieved the set targets. Goals of the EU policy The reduction of greenhouse gases in the transport sector is main target of the EU policy. The policy states that carbons should be cut by at least 60 percent in the year 2050. The second aim of the policy is to move away from use of oil without any effect to the transport industry. This means that mobility of goods and persons should continue. The third main goal of the policy is to make use of more efficient vehicles in the transport industry, which calls for the use of high speed trains and move away from use of road for transport of goods to a rail transport system. Additionally, the policy states that use of infrastructure in the transport sector should be well managed to increase efficiency in movements of freight and persons. The three goals stated by the EU can be broken down further using different transport sector. For example, urban transport sectors call for removal of cars using fossils fuel by half the number by the year 2030, and by 2050 all the oil fuelled cars should be removed from the cities (Ionescu 2012). The aviation and maritime transport sectors would want to achieve goals stated in the white paper. The industry plans to use fuel with low carbon emission by at least 40 percent and this target should be achieved by the year 2050. The transfer of use of road transport to rail and waterways system is also suggested in the policy. The first phase is to transfer about 30 percent of the road transport system to rail or maritime by 2030 and the second phase is to transfer about 50 percent by 2050. This will be done by the development of rail and maritime infrastructure to sustain the transfer. Multimodal development of road system from the unimodal system will give more use of the infrastructure created. The policies also aim to remove harmful effects to the society which happens in the transport industry such road accidents (OECD, 2001). Some of the goals addressed in the treaty signed have been met and this can be evidenced from one of the rail infrastructure systems developed by the EU commission. They have developed a railway standard using the same gauge in all member states across Europe. They have also developed a rail system connecting different cities across Europe. Currently, there is a connection between Paris, Brussels, Cologne and Amsterdam. In addition, a channel tunnel was created to connect London and Paris. The opening of the tunnel saw use by more than 60 percent of the EU market. The London-Paris channel tunnel was one of the corridors in the EU strategy. Other corridors include the Helsinki and Warsaw corridor which has seen the formation of both road and rail transport system in the corridors Identified by the EU. All the targets addressed by the policy have not been met, according to Ionescu (2012), there is a disparity in the mode of transport in EU nations; other nations have highly developed modes of transport. Because of this, the EU commission has planned to remove competition in the building of transport infrastructure. They are also working together to develop modes of transport which would be uniform in all European nations. Environmental Issues Concerning the Transport Policy The transport industry concerning road use, rail and the aviation contributes to about 26 percent of CO2 throughout the world. This percentage is still growing because of high dependence on fossil fuel in the transport industry. Policies were made to address this issue of environmental degradation caused by greenhouse gas emission in the transport industry. The policy is calling for identification and use of other sustainable energy which are environmentally friendly (Chapman 2007). According to Dender (2009), road users using oil are many which also contributes a lot to greenhouse gases despite the call for reduction of the greenhouse gases. Policies made to curb the issues of emission of greenhouse gases still have a long way to reduce the emission. While Bristow et al (2008) shows that technology alone cannot reduce greenhouse emission, the changes in modes of transport with regard to use of fossils fuel can make a change. According to Bristow et al (2008), the price applied to the fuel consumption in the industry would make changes in reducing greenhouse gas because there will be less use of motorized transport by travelers. Dender (2009) says that taxes should be a solution in fuel industry; high taxes imposed on fuel will encourage users to find alternative sources of energy. Reduction of greenhouse gas emission has been reduced in some countries in Europe and there are plans to reduce it by more than 60 percent in the year 2050. Bristow et al (2008) explains that the UK is on plans to reduce carbon emission by 60 percent in the year 2050, though this percentage does not correlate with the targets of other EU countries. Germany, France and Netherlands are targeting 80%, 75% and 80% respective reduction of greenhouse gasses in transport sector. Policies of Shipping Goods and Services The larger percentage of the EU economy depends on shipping business which is mostly contributed to by the taxes levied on the shipping companies. According to Marlow & Mitroussi (2008), approximately 90 percent of EU trade done externally is ferried by the sea and also internal trade constituting about 40%, is transported by the sea. Additionally, the EU attracts other services like ship building, tourism and other maritime services, which makes the EU the leading in terms of trade in relation to maritime. In relation to pollution caused by maritime vessels, the EU has establish some measures like working on building sustainable and economical shipping vessels with lower greenhouse gas emissions. They are also finding ways on which they can reduce CO2 emissions by the available maritime vessels. The plans made on this policy are to transport goods by both road and short sea shipping because of the availability of other infrastructures for transporting goods such as roads and rails. Most of the imported commodities to the EU are charged low tariffs as compared to tariffs to the same products in other nations. Because of this, there are many commodities shipped to the EU. The EU has to impose stringent measures to protect the health of consumers and the environmental concerns which may be caused by commodities shipped to the EU (Fernandez et al 2010). Shipping policies for goods and services also cover environmental concerns. According to Tzannatos (2010), emission from the maritime vessels also accounts to global greenhouse emission despite the fact that their percentage is small as compared to other offshore vessels like cars and lorries. Due to economic changes in the world which has led to more goods traded between different regions, there has been an increase in greenhouse emissions contributed to by maritime vessels. Because of this, the EU created polices governing greenhouse emissions contributed to by vessel like use of low sulphur fuel in the industry since sulphur has been identified as one of the contents depilating the ozone layer (Coghlin 1990). Conclusion From the study, it is clear that the EU has been working hard to stay on top of other competitive markets and also by making sure that the environment has been taken care of from the pollutants relating to road, aviation and maritime vessels. They have been doing this by creating policies to govern the use of such vessels so that they control emissions. In addition to that, the EU has been working together to make sure that transport infrastructure is well balanced throughout Europe to increase movement of goods through different European nations. They have achieved this by funding projects together such as roads and rail system. In addition to that, they have also agreed to remove border tariffs to ease movement of goods in different international borders. Policies created by the EU to foster their working relation has seen a number of achievements in the EU transport industries, for example, the EU countries have set targets to cut greenhouse emission by more than 60 percent in 2050. Conversely, there have been problems relating to achievements of the set goals by the EU countries. The EU has been trying to phase out use of road transport to cut gas emission and to reduce congestion but the number of people using road transport system is increasing. References Bristow, L. A, Tight M., Pridmore, A. & May, D. A 2008, ‘Developing Pathways to Low Carbon Land-Based Passenger Transport in Great Britain By 2050,’ Energy Policy 36, 3427– 3435. Chapman, L 2007, ‘Transport and Climate Change: A Review,’ Journal of Transport Geography 15 (2007) 354–367. Coghlin, H. John, 1990, “Common Maritime Transport Policy for the EEC: The Commission Does Battle with Flags of Convenience,” Boston College International & Comparative Law Review, Vol. 13, no.2, pp. 447-463. Dender, K. Van, 2009, ‘Energy Policy in Transport and Transport Policy,’ Energy Policy, vol. 37 pp. 3854–3862. Fernandez Soto, ,J.L., Garay Seijo, R., Fraguela Formoso, ,J.A., Gregorio Iglesias, G. & Carral Couce, L. 2010, "Alternative Sources of Energy in Shipping", The Journal of Navigation, vol. 63, no. 3, pp. 435-448. Ionescu, R., PhD. 2012, "European Union Transport Policy under the Crisis' Impact", International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, vol. 2, no. 8, pp. 39-60. Marlow, P. & Mitroussi, K. 2008, "EU Shipping Taxation: The Comparative Position of Greek Shipping", Maritime Economics & Logistics, vol. 10, no. 1-2, pp. 185-207. 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