Mr President, I was told I had three minutes' speaking time but no matter. I would like to say briefly, now that another accident has occurred in the St Gotthard tunnel, that I think there is a difference between learning lessons from that accident and exploiting its emotional charge for political ends. If we use the deaths in the St Gotthard tunnel, which, of course, we all deplore, as a pretext for saying that we must not reopen the Mont Blanc tunnel, then we should also close the Fréjus tunnel, the Arlberg tunnel and the Brenner Pass. In fact, we should close every Alpine tunnel that presents the same accident risks. Clearly, that would totally paralyse southern Europe because, quite simply, we no longer have a choice today. As everybody here knows, the railways are not ready either institutionally, technically or economically to take over from the roads. Therefore, it seems to me that we have to take two kinds of measures, short term and long term. In the short term, we must make the tunnels safer and take urgent measures, whether in Mont Blanc, where this has now been done, or in other tunnels, to regulate the traffic, ensure that no hazardous materials are carried through, strengthen the security, safety and intervention systems and speed up the adoption of a European directive on tunnel safety. This is much talked about but it has not yet materialised, so we must put it on the agenda very soon. That aside, like everyone else here I believe that, in the long term, we should quite simply be able to ban, once and for all, heavy goods vehicles in tunnels because they are, in fact, the most dangerous vehicles, but that assumes that alternatives exist, and the Commission has, indeed, presented them in its White Paper. There are other projects too that need to be speeded up, including, in the case of the Alps, the two rail tunnels, the one between Lyon and Turin and the Brenner tunnel; there are similar projects in the Pyrenees, where the traffic situation is even more serious, although this is never mentioned. I believe we must also assume our responsibility here and speak out. For my part, I feel we are still far from doing so. The Commission has produced an excellent White Paper; it is very good at laying down requirements, but it has not as yet paid out enough to enable us to make the transition to rail in the very short term. We therefore need to allocate far, far greater resources to improving rail capacity. Let me finish by saying that public opinion is now concerning itself with transport policy – which is a good thing – and as a result, it is no longer a matter just for the specialists, for the large State bodies. It means we will all be judged by whether we can implement rapid solutions, not just the politicians but also the railwaymen and the hauliers. Let me conclude by saying that I also hope we will not confine ourselves to imposing constraints while rejecting all the solutions. In regard to north-south transport, I think we should also look again at adapting the Rhine-Rhone canal to heavy goods transport. We cannot say that we have to put a stop to road transport while, at the same time, rejecting transport by river and inland waterway which would relieve much of the pressure on the roads.

Political group: PSE