Transportation in the european union.

The transport industry occupies an important position in the Community, accounting for 7 % of its GNP, 7 % of total employment, 40 % of Member States' investment and 30 % of Community energy consumption. Demand, particularly in intra-Community traffic, has grown more or less constantly for the last 20 years, by 2.3 % a year for goods and 3.1 % for passengers.

The advent of the single market marked a turning point in the common transport policy, since the abolition of frontiers and other liberalization measures. Of course in those measures the liberalization of cabotage was also included. But the liberalization of transport has taken various constraints into account:

*A social constraint, so that the freedom to provide services does not result in the strictest national legislation being bypassed. Liberalization of services has therefore been accompanied by harmonization of social conditions, of the rules governing the provision of services and of qualifications;

*An economic constraint, so that investment in infrastructure is not exploited by transport undertakings which play no part in their financing: this is of particular concern to the road transport sector. Measures should also be taken to make sure that the way rail transport is organized does not perpetuate the current fragmented state of this form of transport;

*a route-guarantee constraint, so that the introduction of new factors of competition does not put in doubt the continuity of transport links between peripheral (island) and central (mainland) areas.

The measures that had already been taken on transport liberalization have been adapted, in the way that they were applied, to the specific nature of each mode of transport. The common aim for each mode was to proceed from the provision of an international service (between two Member States) to cabotage (transport in another Member State).

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