The biggest enlargement ever of the European Union is an economic success: the 12 new Member States' economies are growing at a rapid pace enabling them to progressively bridge the gap with their richer neighbors. But the latter also win as the increase of the EU's single market by 75 million to 450 million inhabitants brings a wealth of trade and investment opportunities. "The re-unification of Europe is not only a huge political achievement it is also an economic success," said Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Joaquín Almunia. "We all win as the citizens in the new Member States see their standards of living increasing. We win because companies in the EU take advantage of new business opportunities, become more efficient and, therefore, more competitive on the world scene. The enlargement is helping the EU cope better with the new world economic order".
In contributing to the implementation and development of the Internal Market, as well as re-enforcing economic and social cohesion, the construction of the Trans-European Network of Transport is a major element in economic competitiveness and a balanced and sustainable development of the European Union. This development requires the interconnection and interoperability of national networks as well as the access to them, and as a result transport figures grow year after year.
In the mean time, other figures show growth year after year as well; those of the volume of organized theft of vehicles and their loads. Several member states already rang the alarm bell, at a national level, public as well as non-public organizations, are developing strategies to decrease the number of robberies, where both commercial vehicles and their loads are concerned.
The new Europe, the Europe of the future, clearly benefits by a non-obstacle transport system in which buyers as well as sellers can rely on safe transportation of their goods. Therefore the European Union is stimulating the initiative to develop secure parking areas at strategic locations spread over the European Unions' member states. Together with several other initiatives the realization of secure parking areas can be seen as a big step forward towards a safe T-ENT. Only a safe T-ENT can facilitate the Unions further economic growth. Therefore we, EUGC, stand for the user-registration of safe and secure strategically spread parking areas as an integrated part of a safe T-ENT.
