Transportation in the European union

The transport industry occupies an important position in the Community, accounting for 7 % of its GNP, 7 % of total employment, 40 % of Member States' investment and 30 % of Community energy consumption. Demand, particularly in intra-Community traffic, has grown more or less constantly for the last 20 years, by 2.3 % a year for goods and 3.1 % for passengers.
The advent of the single market marked a turning point in the common transport policy, since the abolition of frontiers and other liberalization measures. Of course in those measures the liberalization of cabotage was also included. But the liberalization of transport has taken various constraints into account:
• A social constraint, so that the freedom to provide services does not result in the strictest national legislation being bypassed. Liberalization of services has therefore been accompanied by harmonization of social conditions, of the rules governing the provision of services and of qualifications;
• An ...