PLANNING FOR A SUSTAINABLE EUROPE? - TU Berlin

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infrastructure charging systems across modes of transport and Member States undermines
the efficiency and the sustainability of Europe’s transport system” (§1, Executive
Summary). The key proposition of the paper is to introduce the marginal social cost
charging principle to “enhance both the efficiency and the sustainability of the transport
system” (§3, executive summary). The paper is quite indicative for the Commission’s
eco-modernist rhetoric on sustainable transport in the sense that it aims to set a new
agenda for the removal of current biases in infrastructure charging, yet ultimately
downplays the central argument made by environmental advocates that the internalization
of external (environmental) costs should be recognized as a policy goal in itself, and not
simply as a matter of pricing efficiency and a readjustment of market distortions (for a
more extensive elaboration of this point, see T&E 1999).
5.3.7 Transport-specific Conclusions of the Gothenburg European Council
As noted above, transport was listed as one of the four priority areas singled out
by the EU’s Göteborg Council in June 2001 to target environmental priorities for
sustainability. More specifically, the presidency conclusions provide the following
important definition of EU sustainable transport policy (European Union 2001:6-7):
A sustainable transport policy should tackle rising volumes of traffic and levels of
congestion, noise and pollution and encourage the use of environment-friendly modes
of transport as well as full internalisation of social and environmental costs. Action is
needed to bring about a significant decoupling of transport growth and GDP growth,
in particular by a shift from road to rail, water, and public passenger transport. To
achieve this the European Council:
- invites the European Parliament and the Council to adopt by 2003 revised guidelines
for trans-European transport networks on the basis of a forthcoming Commission
proposal, with a view to giving priority, where appropriate, to infrastructure
investment for public transport and for railways, inland waterways, short sea
shipping, intermodal operations and effective interconnections;