CONFÉRENCE EUROPÉENNE DES MINISTRES DES TRANSPORTS
EUROPEAN CONFERENCE OF MINISTERS OF TRANSPORTRESOLUTION No. 95/1 ON ACCESS TO THE EUROPEAN TRANSPORT MARKETS[CEMT/CM(95)1/FINAL]

The Council of Ministers of the ECMT, meeting in Vienna on 7 and 8 June 1995,

HAVING REGARD:--

to the importance of the growing trade relations in Europe;--

to the Crete Declaration; in particular to paragraph 1 in chapter B, which says:"...Transport policy should be organised on a social market economy and free and faircompetition basis in all the participating states and at European Community level; theprogressive freeing of access to the transport market and to the transport of passengers andfreight offered on national territory should go ahead on a reciprocal and mutuallyadvantageous basis and in accordance with the progress made in achieving free movementof goods and passengers within the national territories and in harmonizing the conditions ofcompetition...";--

to the ECMT Resolutions on Road transport [CEMT/CM(94)10 Final], and on obstacles atborder crossings [CEMT/CM(94)11/Final];--

to the priority in the ECMT Work Programme given to the subject of integration of new
Member countries, the mandate for the Group on Integration [CEMT/CS/AMR(94)6] and inparticular to the statement therein:"The new Member States have to be integrated gradually into the European transportsystem, without discrimination and without prejudice to their ability to compete on theinternational transport market";--and to other relevant parts of ECMT resolutions concerning new Members;

REAFFIRMING that measures to liberalize international transportation services should take place inparallel with the harmonization and introduction of high technical standards for vehicles and thepromotion of road safety, as well as the protection of the environment with a view to creating faircompetitive conditions between hauliers of Member countries and between the transport modes;

TAKING NOTE of the conclusions of the ECMT Seminar on Integration of Central and Eastern
European Operators in European Transport Markets held in Paris, 16-17 March 1995, inparticular:--that developed transport connections between East and West, including fair and equal
opportunities for doing business in the field of transport are essential for the integration ofcentral and eastern European countries in Europe;--that the current regulatory system is unwieldy, consisting as it does of different provisions
and standards, especially in market access opportunities;--

that barriers to efficient transport operations exist nationally due to the level of developmentof the transportation systems and the restructuring of markets in the central and eastern
European countries (under-developed transport and telecommunication infrastructure, delays
at border crossings as well as technological, legal, organisational, managerial, economic andfinancial barriers) and internationally due to different conditions in international market
access (e.g. shortage of road permits and capacity regulations in inland navigation);--that harmonization of competition conditions between central and eastern European and west
European countries and their transport operators should be gradual and coupled with thenecessary lead time for adjustments;--that mutual liberalization of market access should allow transitional arrangements andshould be introduced in harmony with environmental protection and the development of allmodes of transport;--that the countries having concluded the Europe Agreements with the European Union
attribute great significance to the Sectoral Agreements foreseen therein;

RECOGNIZING:----

that barriers are severe handicaps for central and eastern European countries to participate inEuropean transport markets and therefore a number of measures -- some only for a period oftransition -- need to be taken to overcome these barriers and to ensure full integration of thecentral and eastern European countries in Europe to the benefit of all European countries;that rail and combined transport offer ecological alternatives to road haulage;

RECOMMENDS:----

that problems which hamper commercial transactions and economic integration must beaddressed on an emergency basis;that rail and combined transport be developed and promoted as a matter of priority;--that the necessary harmonization of rules and regulations should take place at the same timeas transitional arrangements for the opening up of transport markets;--that for this purpose a set of Pan-European principles needs to be elaborated by defining
arrangements for high safety, environmental and technical standards and with harmonizedsocial and fiscal provisions;--that, since bilateral arrangements will continue to exist in road transport -- at least among thecentral and eastern European countries -- principles for bilateral agreements should be drawn
up, taking account of European Union competencies, and harmonization through common
rules included in future bilateral agreements be speeded up;--that further studies of market access issues should be carried out, in particular through thecompilation and analysis of market access provisions in and between Member countries;2--

that, as the ECMT quota of multilateral authorisations for road freight transport is a valuablemeans for improving access to the market, it should be used as an important tool in theprocess of liberalisation, integration and rationalisation of transport operations;--that conditions of access to the profession in the central and eastern European countries
should be brought into line with the existing European Union Regulations with appropriate
transition arrangements;--that the elaboration of common rules and documents for coach services in passenger
transport, including the liberalization of such services starting with occasional coachservices, would equally facilitate the movement of persons and the utilization of public
transport;--that ECMT should be of assistance to the new Member countries by focusing on transport
policy-making and implementation issues in future seminars and studies;--that procedures for obtaining visas for professional lorry and coach drivers -- taking into
account existing consular rules -- ought to be simplified as much as possible;--that Ministers of Transport of those Member countries which have not yet adhered to theimportant UN/ECE agreements such as, for example, AETR, CMR, TIR, ADR, ATP shouldmake every effort to do so rapidly;

INSTRUCTS the Committee of Deputies to report on the implementation of the above decisions atthe next ECMT Council Meeting.

3