The impact of the “2007+” financial crisis on the activity of the land transport sector in the European Union

It is not easy to assess the effects of the global financial crisis, conventionally referred to in the literature as the “2007+” crisis, in the second half of 2011. We are witnessing another phase of it, the consequences of which may be even more severe for the global economy than those observed so far. The financial crisis is spreading to other spheres of the economy and social life, resulting in phenomena characteristic of an economic recession. The OECD report indicates that the GDP of member countries slowed its growth in the second quarter of 2011 to 0.2% (including: Germany 0.1%, Great Britain 0.2%, USA 0.3%), while in the first quarter it averaged 0.3%1.
Transport is called the barometer of the economy. Through the activity of the broadly understood sector (including the automotive industry), transport reflects the state of the economy, its development potential, and household consumer sentiment. However, this reflection occurs with some delay. Hence, in transport, the beginning of the crisis took place in 2008 (globally – from January 2008, in the EU – from the second quarter of 2008).
Trends in the development of global foreign trade
The “2007+” crisis had a greater impact on trade than previous crises. One of the reasons for this impact is the geographical fragmentation of production processes, which is possible, incidentally, thanks to transport, which, through its development, has intensified the instability of trade and commodity flows. As a result, it is recognized that the dependence of transport on macroeconomic risk is increasing”2. Global commodity turnover is the primary factor creating demand for international freight transport. The crisis of recent years has seriously weakened the previous trends in the level of this demand, not only in relation to the main global players – China and the USA, but also individual EU countries (Table 1). According to OECD estimates, reaching the pre-crisis level of exports and imports (in value terms) by the largest EU economies will only be possible in 2011 (with the exception of Germany, where the expected growth in imports already occurred in 2010). The indicated general trends are also characteristic of Poland, where the value of exports decreased from 128.4 billion USD in 2008 to
112.4 billion USD in 2009 and slightly increased in 2010 to 125.4 billion USD. This is still a lower level than in 2007. (…)

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