EU transport policy at a crossroad: The cost of liberalisation for climate change and personal mobility

This chapter discusses the relationship between the Commission and the Member States emphasising diverging ideas of transport, which have influenced EU transport policy-making since the Treaty of Rome. It outlines early development to explain the original role of transport policy in the Community. The chapter identifies the multiple contradicting policy aims which prevent EU Transport Policy from moving from a liberalised market focused on growth to a sustainable transport area. The Commission was unable to gain support from the Council because Member States did not believe that their transport policies had failed. In 1985, under the guise of the Single European Market programme, the Commission published a transport white paper which aimed to liberalise national transport markets. Climate change has started to dominate policy-making at different levels of governance, including the EU, where discussions of the speed and direction of the energy transition entail changes to mobility and transport policies.