Romanian Participation at Commission’s Green Paper in Brussels
The representatives from European Commission, the high-level political from the European Institutions and from European cities participated at the “Conference of urban transport, problems, solutions and responsibilities” organised by European Union - Commission’s Green Paper in Brussels, on 31 th January 2007. Mr Emil Calota, mayor of Ploiesti, the Romanian follower partner of the CIVITAS SUCCESS consortium, was invited to present his experience and his expectations on behalf of the Romanian local authorities concerning the growing stakes in urban transport in the Romanian cities. At the event also participated Ms.Jean Yates the Lancashire County Councillor and Ms.Cozia Roxana GEORGESCU - Head of International Relations Ploiesti City Hall.
Within the projects of the CIVITAS SUCCESS, Ploiesti City Hall aims to develop a sustainable transport and to achieve the policy objectives in areas such as climate change, energy efficiency, congestion, alternative fuels, modal split, road safety, industrial competitiveness, environmental, health and social inclusion. The specific problems on urban transport of Ploiesti City mentioned by the mayor consist of the poor infrastructure and equipment, with environmental negative effects and poor local sources of founds. He told that the greatest interest for the Ploiesti citizens is the Green Paper’s measures implementation on urban transport. Therefore, actions of building operational capacity at the local level on Urban Mobility Plan are a necessity. Mr. Calota insisted on the need of a good technical assistance for local urban transport stakeholders, a good support for dissemination at the local level to get access to transport measures and to design good transport plans in accordance. He also mentioned that green paper added value would be a package of convergent measures implemented by regions with similar problems, to coordinate and ensure a better use of structural funds. In order to realise that, these actions may be EU programs, co-financed by local partners, in the field of training, technical assistance, guidelines implemented locally. Of course, the municipalities are entitled to adopt their local transport policy and traffic plan. The expected results will be achieved with a radical change in urban transport strategy and promoting the exploitation of the demonstration results.A market campaign will be promoted in order to sustain the implementation of the measures.The interests of the CIVITAS initiative approach to prevent, identify and overcome barriers that can be political, economical, cultural or technical; and to set up networks for exchange on transport experiences, for European regions which may know similar problems.Finally, the mayor of Ploiesti City thanked the European Commission for the innovative consultative method of several public conferences, the Internet questionnaire consultation for the most complete collection of ideas from a wide range of actors for urban transport and for all over Europe.It was possible, during the conference, to put forward some of the problems and issues associated with the development of innovative and exciting projects. There was a good level of interest from all parties at the meeting which was closed with the intervention of Mr. Barrot - Commission Vice-President. To participate to the debate on urban transport, go to the Internet public consultation until the 30th of April 2007http://ec.europa.eu/transport/clean/green_paper_urban_transport/index_e…
