The Green Paper "Towards Fair and Efficient Pricing in Transport" was presented by the Commission in December 1995 to stimulate a debate about the use of economic instruments in the European Common Transport Policy. The Commission invited all interested parties to submit comments. Although no final deadline for sending comments was set in the Green Paper the Commission believes that it is now time to summarise the comments it has received. However, the Commission will continue listening to submitted opinions on the Green Paper and other parts of the Common Transport Policy. Up to September 1996 the Commission had received 94 detailed comments from national, regional and local authorities, from private industry and industrial organisations, from shippers, hauliers and their organisations as well as from NGO and academic institutions. The responses come from most of the Member States of the Union. To summarise over 1000 pages of comments in a fair and efficient way is not easy. To reprint all the comments word by word would result in a huge catalogue with many repetitions of different statements. This would also be true if the Commission tried to summarise each response. Instead, we have tried to identify a number of key messages in each submission. We have summarised the comments under 10 different headings: The transport problem; A part of a comprehensive transport policy; The principle in all modes of transport; On congestion; On environment and public health; On external benefits; On accidents; On competitveness; On the theoretical and empirical foundation; and Some final comments. (A)
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