Transport policy of the European Union member states – part 1

The essence of the European Union’s community nature is the coordination and implementation by member states of a common and harmonized policy in individual areas of socio-economic life. The existing EU acquis includes common policies, e.g., in the areas of energy, trade, competition, environmental protection, education, etc. Some of these are very advanced (economic and monetary union), some, like the common agricultural policy, despite their advancement, require certain changes, while other areas are harmonized to a greater or lesser extent. Such an area is also the common transport policy.

At the root of the Union’s (and earlier the EEC’s) interest in the transport sector was its significant expansion and development in the 1960s and 1970s. This was a consequence of the sustained high economic growth in Europe and the significant intensification of trends towards the liberalization of the exchange of goods and services between EEC countries.

The first provisions concerning the common transport policy were formulated in the Treaty of Rome. They assumed the introduction of the principles of the EEC common transport policy in the field of land transport by 1970, and the harmonization of the entire area by 1979. The goal was to create an efficiently functioning transport system that would ensure the satisfaction of all transport needs at the lowest cost, stimulating the development of trade between individual member countries. It was assumed that the EEC transport policy should be based on the principles of fair competition, with exceptions for public services or the reconstruction of transport branches.

The implementation of these agreements, however, proved to be beyond the strength of the EEC. Countries with poorer infrastructure joined the community, the decision-making process became complicated, and unanimity procedures made it impossible to negotiate and adopt rules integrating and liberalizing transport policy in accordance with the guidelines of the Treaty of Rome.

The lack of resolutions on this issue led the European Parliament in 1982 to sue the EEC Council of Ministers, responsible for the harmonization process, before the Court of Justice, accusing it of violating the Treaty of Rome. In 1985, the Court recognized the Council’s guilt, which gave a new impetus to addressing the issue of common transport policy, including forcing member states to accept the legislative primacy of the Community in this matter.

The Maastricht Treaty, which organized and strengthened the community nature, secured the foundations of transport policy. It facilitated the decision-making process by introducing qualified majority voting instead of unanimity and introduced the concept of trans-European networks, which opened up the possibility of developing transport infrastructure using EU financial resources. In 1992, the first White Paper was published, containing a program for the development of a common transport policy. This program aimed to open up the Community’s transport market and began to be consistently implemented in the 1990s.

Ten years of the White Paper’s operation yielded measurable results. With the exception of the rather rigid railway sector, market liberalization, increased competition, and cost reductions occurred in other branches, and consequently, an increase in the quality of services and choice. Cabotage became a permanent element of the market, and air transport became cheaper while ensuring the highest level of safety. In 1970, the average citizen of the Community traveled 17 km per day, whereas in 1998 it was already 35 km. These positive results encouraged the Union to create a second, long-term transport development program, which was published in 2001 under the title “European transport policy for 2010: time to decide”.