The end of 1992 will mark the beginning of a new departure for the Community's common transport policy (CTP). For many years progress towards the realization of the CTP was slow, especially when measured against the importance of transport in the Community economy. The Court of Justice had to intervene several times on basic questions of interpretation of the transport provisions of the Treaty of Rome in order to make progress possible. This process reached its climax in 1985 when the Court declared that the inland transport of goods and passengers should be open to all Community firms, without discrimination as to nationality or place of establishment. The 1985 landmark judgment of the Court coincided with the Commission s White Paper on the completion of the internal market now entering its final phase in the run-up to 1993. The Commission then placed transport in the forefront of the moves towards the completion of the internal market recognizing that the abolition of restrictions on the provision of transport services was essential if the elimination of administrative, technical, fiscal, customs and other barriers to trade were to realize their full potential. The Single European Act that followed accelerated the decision-making process by introducing majority voting on questions of shipping and air transport policy. Since then, the CTP has developed rapidly, encompassing a wide range of measures, actions and initiatives aiming at bringing about the single market for transport services. The end-result of this process now emerging as a tangible reality throughout the Community, is the creation of a new, more open market, free from unnecessary red tape and quantitative restrictions, but at the same time maintaining such guarantees as are necessary to ensure fair competition. Other important components of this emerging reality are improved competitiveness, financial performance and efficiency of transport undertakings and improvements in the functioning and quality of transport systems, including safety, reliability and passenger comfort. Measures have also been taken for the protection of the environment, while a beginning has been made concerning transport-related research and development and transport infrastructure. Transport relations with third countries have also begun to be dealt with at Community level. The implementation of the Treaty on European Union agreed at Maastricht will at once confirm and give a new impulsion to the evolution of the CTP. Measures to improve transport safety receive for the first time explicit recognition. The provisions on trans-European networks and economic and social cohesion provide a new basis for the Community to contribute to the establishment and development of transport infrastructure. The new title on industry underlines the need for conditions that will ensure the competitiveness of Community enterprises. At the same time the Union Treaty emphasizes that in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, the CTP must consist of actions which cannot be realized adequately by the Member States individually and therefore, by reason of their dimensions or effects, are better realized by the Community. 8. Therefore, 1992 marks an important turning point in the evolution of the CTP from a policy which has aimed essentially at the completion of the internal market through the elimination of artificial regulatory barriers to the provision of services, towards a more comprehensive policy designed to ensure the proper functioning of the Community's transport systems on the basis of an internal market in which any remaining restrictions or distortions should be eliminated as rapidly as possible, while taking into account the new challenges likely to confront transport policy in the post- 1992 period. Among those challenges one of the most important is the integration of environmental objectives as now laid down in the Union Treaty. The identification of the new challenges taken as a whole, and of the extent to which they require a Community response, constitutes the necessary first step in the development of the Community's CTP up to the .end of the decade and beyond into the new century. The purpose of this paper is to set out a global approach to these issues that will enable those concerned and, in particular, the Community's political institutions to consider them as a whole before particular initiatives are launched, starting in 1993. (Author/publisher)
Samenvatting