|
Ireland is to get 5 new motorways, and large sections of these roads will be tolled. Many new town bypasses will also be tolled. In England, tolling is also on the political agenda, with the proposed Northern Birmingham Relief Road being a tolling scheme. Germany, which has never had a history of charging for road use, is now too tolling newly constructed roads. Governments across Europe now see tolling as an important part of infrastructural development. Why?
Tolling emerged as a part of the solution of road congestion in a report called “Missing Networks, A European Challenge” published in 1989 by the European Round Table of Industrialists (ERT). The ERT is a high-powered lobby group based in Brussels. Its members are the CEOs of 45 of Europe’s biggest multinational corporations, such as Shell, BP, Fiat, Volvo, ICI and Nestle. It is difficult to overstate the influence that the ERT has on public policy in Europe. The group boasts of having access to the main European heads of states and the President of the European Commission. According to ERT Secretary-General Keith Richardson, this level of access is key to the groups success at influencing European policy. Its is "being able to 'phone Helmut Kohl and recommend that he read a report...[or] John Major 'phoning...to thank the ERT for its viewpoints."
The ERT was the driving force behind the Single European Act (SEA) in 1986, which
led to the creation of the single European market. In 1983 the ERT produced a report called “Europe 1990: an Agenda for Action”. The aim of the report was to kick-start the stalled process for further European integration. The European Commission soon produced a document called “Completion of the Internal Market” which very closely resembled the ERT’s Report. The
Commission's document was to form the basis of the SEA. Jacques Delors, President of the Commission at the time of the SEA admitted that the ERT
was the driving force behind it.
Having succeeded in its aim of the creation on a single European market, the ERT focused on Europe’s transport infrastructure. A series of reports were published calling for
extensive road building projects. The idea of Trans-European Networks (TENS) was formed and the building of these motorways was written in to the Maastricht Treaty. But the problem of congestion remained. No matter how many roads are built, there will always be congestion as the building of roads leads to the creation of traffic to fill them. Congested roads significantly increase the cost of transportation for large companies. The solution to this problem was discussed in “Missing Networks”.
User charges, or tolls, would “put a price on the use of a major urban access road or highway ensur[ing] that only those deriving a corresponding economic benefit from it will use it.” Tolls will reduce the amount of traffic on roads, thus allowing traffic that can afford to pay the tolls to move freely. What the ERT was proposing was the creation of vast new motorways that would be kept free of traffic through the use of tolls. The major European multinationals could significantly reduce transport costs, and thus increase profit, by reducing congestion.
© Campaign for Sensible Transport 2001
September 10 2001
|
