Austria takes green policies to heart

Date: 23/07/1998

By Simon Coss

THE newly launched Austrian presidency of the European Union is wasting little time in parading its 'green' credentials.

The Austrians will host an international conference in Vienna next week which aims to draw up world-wide rules for reducing the damage done to the environment and public health by transport.

Vienna hopes the 28-30 July talks will prepare much of the groundwork for a World Health Organisation (WHO) charter on environmental health which is set to be signed in June next year. The Austrian government says reducing environmental pollution and health risks from transport is a priority for its six months in charge of EU business.

The conference will be opened by Austrian Environment Minister Martin Bartenstein and attended by experts from many EU member states and non-governmental organisations. The head of the European Commission's Directorate-General for transport (DGVII) will also take part in the event.

According to Vienna, the conference will provide more encouragement for governments to introduce healthy and environmentally friendly transport policies in the EU. “We want to give a strong impetus to encourage the integration of health and environment considerations into transport issues,” said a spokesman for Austria's environment ministry.

Vienna says it wants to support the “development of strategies and the implementation of measures to achieve sustainable and healthy transport in Europe”.

The issues of health, transport and the environment have been a recurring theme of Austria's short membership of the Union. Ever since it joined in 1995, Vienna has complained about the number of heavy trucks thundering through its Brenner Pass route across the Alps, avoiding the more expensive crossings via non-EU state Switzerland.

Austria is currently facing legal action in the European Court of Justice because the Commission believes its tolls on the Brenner route are too high.