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Commission to examine ETF call for a European social and environmental observatory in transport

28 February 2008

The European Commission accepted to examine the proposal put forward by the European Transport Workers’ Federation (ETF) to set up a European social and environmental observatory in the transport sector. The ETF is calling for an external body that monitors and proposes legislative measures when social and environmental sustainability objectives linked to the industry fail.

The ETF has put its weight behind sustainability goals with a policy paper presented yesterday at the final conference of the 18-month TRUST project, with TRUST standing for TRade Union Vision on Sustainable Transport. The document, hammered out by affiliates across 40 European countries, proposes a broad trade union definition of sustainable transport that embraces the economic, social and environmental pillars.

Policy areas to be tackled within a sustainable transport include spatial planning, infrastructure, role of states and financing; instruments addressed to mitigate and reverse transport effects on the environment; and consistent social policies that go hand in hand with a strong social dialogue, explains the ETF in its paper.

Social sustainability is the pivotal concept to be developed, insisted ETF Deputy General Secretary Sabine Trier. “The ETF is convinced that environmental and social sustainability for transport are two sides of the same coin and cannot be separated. There will not be a sustainable transport system when workers’ living and working conditions in the industry are not acceptable”, she added.

Addressing the Conference, Commission Vice-President responsible for transport, Jacques Barrot, outlined the action plan for the sector. After giving mention of the social goals set for different transport sub-sectors, he held a valuable exchange of views with key ETF delegates.

It was Deputy Director General for DG Transport and Energy (TREN), Zoltan Kazatsay, to reply to the ETF call for the establishment of an observatory. He stressed that it was “too early to respond positively or negatively” and that, in any case, this initiative should not replace social dialogue. “An assessment of its potential viability must be foreseen before the Commission signs up to the proposal”, he continued.

ETF General Secretary Eduardo Chagas declared: “We are glad that the Commission reacted openly to this proposal. We are available to embark on discussions on what this observatory should look like”.

For more information, please contact:
Sabine Trier
ETF Deputy General Secretary
Tel.: 0032/2.285.46.67
E-mail: s.trier@etf-europe.org
www.etf-europe.org

Related documents:

ETF Press Release on EU observatory in transport (45kb PDF)

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