Transport Policy

Abstract

Apart from agriculture (and fisheries) transport was the only domestic sector of the economy singled out by the Treaty of Rome, in Title IV of Part Two (‘Bases of the Community’), as requiring a common policy. Furthermore, for many years the majority of Ministers attached especial importance to Article 84 of this Title. This stated baldly that the provisions of the Title should apply to transport by rail, road and inland waterway and that the Council should decide in due course if, and how, its provisions should be extended to sea and air transport. This implied, it was held, that other Treaty provisions, especially those concerning competition policy, did not apply to the particular field of transport. In this respect, as will be noted later, the Court of Justice ultimately held that the Ministers were in error.