This afternoon the Committee’s plenary session held a thematic debate, in the presence of the responsible European Commission member and Vice-President, Siim Kallas, about the Commission’s White Paper on a ‘Roadmap to a Single European Transport Area – Towards a Competitive and Resource Efficient Transport System’. Also on the agenda was the Committee’s response to the White Paper, an opinion prepared by Jean Coulon (Employees’ Group, France) and Stefan Back (Employers’ Group, Sweden). In a nutshell, the Committee expressed general support for the Commission’s ambitions, but it also expressed criticism about what it sees as the mismatch between the goals, the methods needed to achieve them and the budgetary resources available. The Committee’s opinion also criticised the strategy’s lack of specific shorter-term measures. Pointing out that the White Paper would be followed up by more detailed proposals, Kallas demonstrated the value he attaches to the expertise of the Committee’s members by giving detailed answers to the many points made. This, as the next post will show, was the first of two such well-informed dialogues. Such debates are, to my mind, concretisation of the provision of Article 11 of the Lisbon Treaty for all EU institutions to enter into structured and open dialogue with organised civil society.
Leave a Reply