Greener Transport

Speech by Fiona Hall MEP delivered to Plenary Debate in the European Parliament on Tue 10th Mar 2009

Speaking in the plenary debate on integrated pollution prevention and control in the European Parliament, Fiona said:

Mr President, I want to say a word on the need to include CO2 emissions in the Eurovignette. CO2 emissions from heavy goods vehicles amount to almost a quarter of emissions from road transport and, while cars are gradually getting more efficient, HGV fuel efficiency has not improved in the last 15 years.

If we do not include CO2 in the Eurovignette, what other options do we have? Precious few, because pigs will fly, as we say, before Ecofin ministers agree on EU-level fuel taxation. Worse still, if a Member State wants to bring in a toll system that reflects the external costs of CO2 , they will not be allowed to do so unless we now include CO2 within the Eurovignette. Excluding CO2 from the Eurovignette would be particularly unfair given that all Member States now have binding CO2 reduction targets to meet under the effort-sharing decision. They need to have a range of tools at their disposal.