The Common Transport Policy: A Case of Lost Direction?

The European Economic Community (E.E.C.) has, since its inception, pursued “common” policies in areas which have a strategic significance for the long term aims of the community. The most significant “common” policy is the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) but of real importance for E.E.C. goals of stimulating the economy and improving the conditions of cross-frontier freight movements is the Common Transport Policy (CTP). It is argued in this paper that while the CTP has made significant progress in the “regulation,” “harmonization.” “charging for infrastructure” and related areas it has failed to recognize the wider environment of transport and in particular the ways in which transport policies are inextricably linked with other policies of the E.E.C. Successive policy statements are examined to illustrate how the E.E.C.'s view of transport can be seen to be increasingly narrow and unrelated to the central issues of community development in the period immediately preceding Economic and Monetary Union. While very critical of E.E.C. policy the underlying assumption is that transport is a core policy through and with which one can advance the central issues, as long as the links between policies are understood and the administrative machinery reflects this.