Will protests affect EU's 'green' transport policies?

By CNN.com Europe Deputy Editor Beat Witschi

The angry fuel tax protests across Europe have not only brought massive petrol shortages and empty supermarket shelves, but they may now also strangle any attempts by the European Union to move towards more environmentally friendly transport policies.

While the street protests will eventually come to an end, their precise long-term environmental impact is unclear. But Brussels is now seriously put to the test to live up to its repeated pledge to stand firm against the road transport lobby and push rail transport as a more environmentally friendly alternative.

Some European governments, such as France and Belgium, have given in to the protesters' tax cut demands, other countries, such as Britain and Germany, have remained firm and refused to budge on the issue.

While the reactions of French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin and his British counterpart Tony Blair are in part guided by different political traditions of handling protests and pressure from the streets, the ferocity of the direct street action has clearly taken politicians by surprise.

Most importantly, the widespread public support for the protests is bound to be seen by many leading politicians as a warning to Brussels over its pledge to work towards greener transport policies.

Not least in light of upcoming elections, European leaders are now unlikely to risk antagonising motorists -- a huge voter group and powerful lobby -- over the issue of fuel tax.

The EU's transport commission made the pro-environment pledges during four years of tough negotiations on a package of bilateral accords with non-member Switzerland.

Those negotiations - in which road and rail transport were of crucial importance for both sides -- were concluded earlier in the year and still have to be ratified by the EU.

Switzerland has been pursuing a policy of allowing only a limited number of heavy goods lorries to cross the Swiss Alps on the EU's vital north-south trade route. The declared aim of the Swiss is to take most of the heavy trucks off the trans-Alpine roads and transport the vehicles by rail with a beefed-up piggyback haulage system.

The crucial issue during the transport negotiations was the price to be paid for each lorry crossing the Alps -- a price tag that has an immediate impact on how many lorries avoid the Swiss route and use Austria instead to travel north or south.

Pro-environment groups in the Alpine regions of Austria, Italy and Switzerland have been complaining for years about noise and pollution caused by the massive convoys of hundreds and hundreds of EU lorries snaking their way across the Alps.

Over the past few years, there regularly have been road blockages by environmental activists in Austria and Switzerland to draw international attention to the situation.

Brussels has promised to listen to those complaints. Now it will have to prove that its promises are still good and that its greener transport plans have not been put on ice.

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September 7, 2000

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