Mr President, apart from soldiers and sailors it used only to be the richest and most powerful of people who found themselves a long way from home. Only a small, privileged group was able to buy goods that were produced a long way away. Nowadays the economy has experienced such a colossal increase in scale that many people work somewhere other than where they live and spend their holidays even further from home. Raw materials and semifinished and finished products are moved enormous distances from places where production is cheapest to other places where many buyers willing to pay high prices are expected. The existence of the European Union has further reinforced this trend, in part through the introduction of a common currency, great freedom for tax-free aviation and the construction of cross-border motorways. For a long time it was only the benefits of this increase in scale that were stressed. It was seen as a great leap forward that the transport required was becoming comparatively cheaper and cheaper. The opinion leaders would rather not admit that growing traffic flows lead to a growing pressure on space, to air pollution, to noise pollution and to road traffic accidents. More and more people are now experiencing the drawbacks. We know now that it is important to reduce unnecessary traffic and to choose modes of transport that take up little space and pollute the environment less. So it is time to choose. Which is, coincidentally, the title of the European Commission’s White Paper on transport for 2010 that we must evaluate today. Are we really making a choice? The Commission has at least tried to make a distinction on the one hand between the car and the plane, which are placing an increasing load on the environment, and on the other environmentally friendly transport by rail and water. This involves a shift in existing traffic flows and a channelling of any further growth in a way in which people and environment can reasonably survive in an increasingly densely populated area. The initial reactions of both organisations of interested parties and this Parliament were unfortunately negative. No one is against the growth of transport by train or by ship, but people were seeking equal treatment for air transport and road transport, in other words scope for them to grow at least as fast. European Union policy would therefore have to be directed at the creation of overcapacity at the taxpayer’s expense. Because of this expensive overcapacity carriers of goods would from case to case have a free hand in choosing the means of transport that is the fastest or cheapest for them at the time. This overcapacity could also lead to more intense competition. This would mean that workers, especially those on the railways and in the ports, would be less certain of keeping their jobs and maintaining their incomes. They would then be played off against people in other sectors who would be no more certain of a stable supply of work. All kinds of liberalisation proposals may turn out to have a negative impact on people and their living environment. Unfortunately, it looks as though the choices that are the most desperately needed will still not have been made to the extent necessary by 2010. Then we shall be seeing the replacement of railways by motorways in the new Member States, a development that Mr Piecyk rightly warned of just now. This is not the way to go and unfortunately we do not have enough of that guarantee.

Political group: GUE-NGL