Our work on transport and tourism

The S&Ds are committed to ensuring we have efficient, safe, sustainable and competitive transport in Europe, protecting jobs and passengers' rights, and guaranteeing free movement of people and goods. These goals can only be achieved when EU social legislation is enforced to avoid disparities in social conditions between member states.

Our achievements
Our achievements

Delays, cancellations, lost baggage... Many EU citizens have experienced these problems when travelling. Our MEPs successfully fought for enhanced rights for rail, air, road and boat passengers, establishing common rules on compensation and assistance for passengers.

The S&Ds have taken action to improve transport safety across Europe. We have fought to increase road-safety education, improve vehicle inspections and protect vulnerable road users. We also backed proposals to take better account of aviation-security issues and ensure better training in the EU aviation sector.

Our priorities
Clean transport
Clean transport

By 2050, the EU must cut transport emissions by 60% (compared with 1990 levels) if we are to limit global warming to an increase of just 2ºC. To meet Europe's climate-change targets, our key strategic aim is to cut carbon emissions from transport to zero in the coming years.

To equip Europe with an up-to-date transport system, regulated with high standards, we need to ensure adequate funding for transport infrastructure. We can do this through research and development focused on intelligent transport systems and on increasing energy efficiency and improving social and environmental impacts.

For cleaner transport, the S&D Group wants to make the polluter pay, so that each form of transport bears the full cost of its impact on society and the environment. We call for robust techniques to put a price on these external costs, so that environmentally damaging forms of transport become more expensive, while sustainable mobility becomes cheaper.

With market surveillance, we can make sure that standards are enforced.  In response to the Dieselgate emissions scandal, the S&D Group has been pushing to tighten up the supervision of standards for new cars to prevent emissions cheating in the future. We are campaigning for consumer compensation and a European vehicle surveillance agency to ensure that new cars have to pass the same tough controls no matter where they are built in Europe.

Worker's rights
Worker's rights

The S&D Group is leading the drive to guarantee every worker in the European Union access to decent work with living wages. We are campaigning to ensure that the new Mobility Package will go hand in hand with the proper enforcement of EU social legislation. The EU must tackle unfair competition, fight against the distortion of working and employment conditions, and ensure adequate social protection for transport workers. At the moment, the companies who play by the rules are not able to compete with unfairly undercut prices and society as a whole is robbed of the taxes and social contributions it needs to pay for essential public services.

This is the price we pay for the failure to crack down on social dumping and letterbox companies. Citizens deserve a forceful response to end these unfair practices. We want to put an end to social dumping by giving the Commission the power to investigate cross-border cases of employers undercutting local wages and conditions, and to penalise the companies involved.  We will also continue the fight against illegal 'cabotage', a practice where a vehicle registered in one country carries goods or passengers in another country without authorisation.

Infrastructure
Infrastructure

We need more ambitious and smart investment in Europe's infrastructure to build a more cohesive EU and to promote sustainable jobs and growth. Our MEPs successfully argued for enough funding for key infrastructure projects through the Connecting Europe Facility - an EU programme that aims to promote investment in transport, energy and telecommunications for the period 2014-2020.

The EU wants to set up a European road toll system so heavy goods vehicles will be charged for using our roads.  The S&Ds want to make sure that the proposed toll system includes not only trucks but also light commercial vehicles and passenger cars, and that the calculation is based on the 'user pays' and 'polluter pays' principles, with external costs taken into account. We want all users to contribute their fair share to the financing of Europe's infrastructure.

Tourism
Tourism

The tourism industry has seen the biggest and fastest growth in the global economy. In order to achieve the full potential of tourism in Europe we need to invest and improve transport infrastructure, develop our diverse cultural networks and heritage sites, and protect rural areas and nature reserves. We also want to protect the rights of workers by providing training opportunities and taking full advantage of the opportunities for creating green jobs.
Tourism also plays a crucial role in creating jobs and economic growth, providing much-needed income to many regions. With careful management, rural tourism can also play an important role in preserving biodiversity and protecting natural habitats, benefitting the environment, local communities and tourists alike.

MEPs involved
Vice-chair
Latvia
Coordinator
Bulgaria
Member
Romania
Member
Germany
Member
Netherlands
Substitute
Portugal
Substitute
Malta
Substitute
Romania
Substitute
France
Substitute
Austria
Substitute
Italy
Substitute
Belgium
Substitute
Denmark