As Marco Onida, Secretary General of the Alpine Convention explains, the Report provides for the first time an alpine-wide overall view on the issue of Transport and Mobility in the Alps, one which is borne jointly by all eight member states of the Alpine Convention. He adds that the Report also provides base data that can now be used instead of the national data which in the past has often differed widely, for instance on transit traffic on the Brenner. Mr Onida also sounds a word of caution about expectations. He said the Report also contained recommendations whose approaches were not new, such as the idea of moving HGV traffic to the rail network. Readers might also search in vain for a recommendation concerning the construction of the Brenner base tunnel. Regula Imhof, Mr Onida's deputy, emphasised that the publication clearly highlighted the differing effects of different transport policies. She expressed the hope that the Report signed by eight Ministers of the Environment would contribute towards ensuring that the common traffic problems faced by the Alpine countries reached a wider audience in Brussels.
With the Report on the State of the Alps the Permanent Secretariat of the Alpine Convention has implemented a project adopted by the Ministers of the Environment of the Alpine states and the EU at the 8th Alpine Conference in 2004: namely to provide the general public at regular intervals with comprehensive information on developments in the Alps. The Reports are also important instruments in the joint implementation of the Alpine Convention. The objective of sustainable development in the Alps is the focal point, which is why the Report addresses not just ecological but also economic and social issues. The publication is already available in English and can be downloaded at http://www.alpenkonvention.org/page9_en.htm. Translations into French, German, Italian and Slovenian will be available soon. The second Report on the State of the Alps, which will be looking at the issue of water, is to be published in 2008. Source: http://derstandard.at/Text/text/?id=2946997 (de)