Chris Bowers

A wonderful example of transnational cooperation

"People just don't understand the full importance to Britain of the European Union."  That was Chris Bowers' comment on returning from Brussels, where he attended the 20th birthday of the European Federation for Transport and Environment (T&E), an organisation in which he has played a formative role.

"So much of the EU's work is done quietly, but the work of T&E is a superb example of how certain things just have to be tackled at transnational level.  In 2008 we at T&E played a major part in securing Europe's first ever law on limiting carbon dioxide emissions from new cars, the kind of legislation that just would never happen at national level because car manufacture is an international business."

The new legislation means all car makers selling cars in Europe must ensure the overall CO2 emissions from their new cars emit no more than 130 grams per kilometre driven.  The limit will apply to a certain amount of cars from 2012, rising to all cars by 2015.  The car industry fought tooth and nail to prevent an obligatory limit to be imposed, but it has happened.

"Of course the limit should have been stricter," Chris adds.  "Most car makers could achieve 120g/km by 2012, and they could even have done better if the Commission and member state governments had taken a tougher line earlier.  But the fact is that you just wouldn't have this kind of agreement if you didn't have the EU, because the car companies would just do their own thing and nothing would improve, despite the environmental imperative for it."

The next big issue on the transport front at EU level is a revision of rules on what countries can charge lorries.  With much long-distance lorry traffic crossing borders, it's again a case where transnational cooperation can make so much more progress than national governments.

"When you see the EU in action, as I have done over the past 20 years," Chris says, "you realise how important it is, and how much we have to lose if the simplistic arguments of the Eurosceptics are allowed too much credence.  That's why people should vote for a party that is not uncritical of the EU, but is enthusiastic about what it can achieve - and in British politics, only the Liberal Democrats fit that description."