Road will remain the main outlet for fruit and vegetables as the Marco Polo program which the European Union developed to clear the roads, shifting freight from the roads to other routes such as by sea, rivers and rail roads, has been ineffective. This was indicated by a report issued by the European Court of Auditors (ECA), which stated that these programs should be suspended.
The ECA report highlights that, without going into details, the programs were ineffective since they did not achieve their goals, their impact on the diversion of cargo from the roads was limited and there was no data available to assess the achievement of the policy's objectives (e.g. environmental benefits), said Ville Itälä, Member of the Court responsible for the report.
Since 2003, the Marco Polo I and II programs financed transportation services projects, by which the freight could be transferred from the highways to the railroads or to inland waterways and short sea shipping. These programs were developed in the context of the EU's transport policy objective to promote alternatives to the transport of freight by road. The generally accepted goal aims to reduce international freight traffic by road, improving the environmental impact of freight transport, reducing congestion and increasing road safety.
However, the audit found that there haven't been enough relevant project proposals, because the market situation and the rules of the programs did not encourage operators to take advantage of the regime.
Half of the projects audited had limited sustainability. One of the main results of the audit was that there were strong indications of the so called deadweight effect, that is, that the projects would have been conducted even without funding from the EU. In fact, thirteen of the sixteen controlled beneficiaries confirmed that they would have started and provided transportation even without subsidy. In addition, there was no reliable data that would allow evaluating the benefits on the environmental impact of freight transport, road congestion and safety.
Suspend funding
In view of the results of the current programs, the Court recommended the Council, the European Parliament and the Commission, study the possibility of suspending EU funding for freight services based on the design of the Marco Polo programmes.
In the future, this funding should be subject to a prior impact assessment, to determine whether, and to what extent, they add value to the EU. This would require a detailed study of the potential demand and best practices in Member States.
Source: Hortoinfo