PLANNING FOR A SUSTAINABLE EUROPE? - TU Berlin

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5.3.3 The Common Transport Policy Action Program
From 1995 to 2000, the Common Transport Policy was enacted via an Action
Program which was organized around strategic objectives concerning market
liberalization; improved integration of transport systems across Europe; fair and efficient
pricing within and between transport modes, and an enhanced social dimension. After
the first two paragraphs, the term “sustainability” never again appears in the document,
and there are few explicit references to environmental matters. One notable exception is
the summary section III A 2, where under the heading “Environment,” we suddenly find
a short statement that “strategic environment assessment of the Trans-European network
will be important for decisions about individual projects.” There is, however, no context
provided for this claim.
5.3.4 The Communication on “Sustainable Mobility”
In December 1998, the Commission published its Communication “Sustainable
Mobility – Perspectives for the Future” (Commission of the European Communities
1998g) in which the Commission reviewed the performance of the Action Program and
laid out its future approach. The communications insists that “the principles established
in 1995 should remain the basis for completing the CTP” (p.10) and then proceeds to set
out an ambitious updated action program covering all aspects of transportation. Almost
half, namely nine of the 20 pages in the Communication are dedicated to a two annexes
that list the Commission’s main actions for the period 1998 to 2000 and possible
proposed tasks up to 2004. Both the annexes and the document body are somewhat
rigidly organized around the three goals of “improving efficiency and competitiveness,”