the Helvetic association of the haulers asks a rinegoziazione for the Switzerland-EU agreement on the terrestrial transports



According to the Swiss Association of street conveyors (ASTAG), to twenty years from its introduction Helvetic politics of transfer of the heavy traffic from the road to the track have been demonstrated bankrupt and "the strategy based on coercive measures against the street transport has not succeeded".

For ASTAG, in fact, from the inclusion of the article n. 84 on the protection of the Alps in the Helvetic Constitution, as a result of the approval on February 20, 1994 of the "Initiative of the Alps", such strategy has not reached the fixed objectives and in particular - the association has rimarcato - the objective of the annual transit of 650.000 trucks through the Swiss Alps "is completely illusory".

On the base of such convincement, ASTAG has sped up a rinegoziazione and an adaptation of the agreement on the terrestrial transports stipulated from Switzerland with the EU as - second the association - sussiste a evident contradiction between the article on the protection of the Alps, that it in transit promises to Swiss people the transfer from the road to the railroad of the international traffic through Switzerland, and the agreement on the terrestrial transports that a green light to the transit road traffic determines. In particular, ASTAG has proposed that the transfer mandate is integrated with a value of reference of 300 kilometers in the agreement on the terrestrial transports, value however included in White Paper of the EU: beginning from this distance - it has explained the association - the transboundary transports must happen on track to prescind from the origin, the place of origin and the nationality. Moreover the association considers necessary that in the earlier stage, until 2030, the maximum limit of transits of truck on the alpine roads goes per year increased to a million unit.

The vice president of the managing committee of the ASTAG, Josef Jäger has found as the practical experience demonstrates that for their transports the enterprises get back at the market and, in such within, the decision is entrusted in the first instance to the quality of the services and not to politics. "This means - the other vice president of the association has confirmed, Jean-Daniel Faucherre - than the question, that is the requirements of the economy and the consumer, are of fundamental importance. The customer is sovereign, also in the within of the transports and the logistics. The influence of politics is therefore much limiting. The transfer cannot be forced. Least of all it is acceptable that more hard is hindered in favor of more the weak person, neither through the imposition of ulterior taxes neither through obligation and not even with restrictions to discapito of the road haulage enterprises. Because the road haulage is and remains indispensable".

For ASTAG an optimal collaboration between modalities of the street and railway transport is therefore necessary to adopt a new approach realizing. The association has moreover supported the urgency to put into effect the widening of the railway corridors for the traffic goods on the axis north-south to the aim of being able truly to put into effect politics of transfer of the traffic. Therefore according to ASTAG he is indispensable to speed up Germany and Italy to timely maintain their engagements in matter of widening of the drafts of access to New transalpine railroad (NFTA): "he is not acceptable - it has denounced the association - than Switzerland must more and more send money to Italy without some counterpart".