IRU General Assembly calls on the European Union and its Member States to support the Smart Move campaign, reintroduce the TIR system in the EU, lift restrictive barriers on international freight and passenger road transport and acknowledge the vital role that road transport has to play in driving economic growth in Europe.

Geneva – The IRU General Assembly today adopted a Resolution on Driving the Europe 2020 Growth Strategy calling upon the European Union and its Member States to lift, without delay, the impediments and barriers imposed on the road transport sector and to recognise the vital role of road transport in driving economic growth.

IRU President, Janusz Lacny stressed, “The European Union’s 2020 Growth Strategy aims to create a smart, sustainable and inclusive economy. Commercial road freight and collective passenger transport have a pivotal role to play in each of these mutually reinforcing principles. To ensure that the road transport sector can play its role in driving EU growth, it is imperative that road transport is facilitated and further promoted, and restrictive barriers on road transport repealed.”

The IRU resolution specifically calls for:

· an end to the indexation and introduction of new taxes, charges and duties on road transport and the earmarking of revenues to support investments in road transport and infrastructure initiatives;

· the creation of a level regulatory playing field between transport modes in taxation, excise duty, and VAT;

· an end to the continual subsidies for unprofitable rail freight services and to the discrimination between modes, created by the railways through the use of public funding to purchase road transport firms;

·  the adaptation of the legal framework to ensure a return on the investment in innovation, efficient, clean and safe technologies, to encourage further innovation and greening at source;

· the facilitation of access for road transport operators to investment funds for the greening at source of their services;

·  the modification of the EU Customs Code to allow the use of the TIR system in the EU for goods transported under customs control and thereby releasing 600,000 road transport companies from the constraints of the current T system;

· an increase in the efficiency and capacity of the EU’s transport system by promoting the use of the European Modular System (EMS) for all inter- and intramodal applications;

· the promotion of an EU policy, based on the Smart Move principle objective of doubling the use of buses and coaches within the next decade.

“Through simple measures the EU could help to create up to 4 million new green jobs in the bus and coach sector, by adopting the IRU lead Smart Move campaign goals and stimulating growth and trade by freeing 600,000 road freight operators from the constraints of the T System by allowing the use of TIR in the EU for goods transported under customs control. Simple actions can have a major impact in creating a growing, dynamic, greener and more efficient Europe,” the IRU President concluded.

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