§ Sir Fergus Montgomeryasked the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make a statement about the European Community Transport Council meeting on 23–24 March.
§ Mr. MooreFurther progress was made towards agreement on a "first step" on air transport liberalisation towards the 1992 internal market deadline. Other member states finally accepted our argument that cheap off-peak fares should be available to all categories of traveller and that unnecessarily restrictive fare conditions should be dropped. The only remaining mandatory conditions for such fares would he an advance purchase requirement and a cancellation-change of booking penalty. The Council accepted these ideas unanimously. The deadlock on fares292W has therefore been broken, but more work is needed on capacity and market access if — as the Commission rightly insists — there is to be an acceptable overall settlement by the end of June. The Belgians have helpfully timetabled an additional Aviation Council for 9 June and the Commission is giving us robust support.
The Council also discussed a number of inland transport issues. On road haulage liberalisation it was unfortunately not possible to reach agreement on a proposal for further increases in the Community quota of road haulage permits for 1987. A further attempt to agree quota increases will be made in June. There was a preliminary exchange of views on road haulage taxation issues. The Council also discussed the financial aspects of the proposed medium-term transport infrastructure programme but made little progress in resolving outstanding differences between member states. The presidency reported on discussions with Austria and Switzerland on the problems of transit traffic through these countries and there was a brief discussion of speed limits. The Council held a minute's silence in memory of the victims of the Zeebrugge ferry tragedy and I was able to thank my fellow Transport Ministers for the assistance given during the rescue operation.