This project will cover more than 40 km of urban roads providing access to areas of economic activity and the city centre. It will also finance the building of a by-pass which, in the long term, will relieve congestion in the centre by enabling heavy-goods vehicles in transit to avoid the city.

B. whereas the newly conceived trans-European network of 'Motorways of the Sea', particularly the 'Motorways' in the Baltic, Western Europe, South-East Europe and South-West Europe, should have the aim of concentrating the movement of goods on maritime logistic routes in such a way as to improve existing short sea shipping services or create new, viable, regular and frequent short sea shipping services for the movement of goods and passengers between the Member States, so as to reduce road congestion and improve transport links with peripheral or island regions and States,

In the centre of Athens municipality area, there is the "ring" where private car-circulation is regulated in relation to the last digit of the number plate (odd/even number).

A driving ban, however useful it may be, has a drastic effect on the principle of the free movement of goods and hits the peripheral countries the hardest.

I think that any self-respecting city in North America, Europe or wherever has this concept of a ring road to allow heavy truck traffic to bypass the downtown area, which is not the case now in Ottawa.

It must furthermore ensure compliance with the general provisions of the Treaty, notably those relating to competition in a transport sector, which by dint of being more open, will naturally face more competition. 2. Putting in place a genuinely integrated system The smooth functioning of the various networks and modes of transport is impaired by the fact that they are imperfectly integrated. Not only does this narrow the consumer's choices, it also penalizes firms and hampers the free movement of people. Such drawbacks are felt most keenly in the Community's peripheral regions. Against this new backdrop of "sustainable mobility", the Commission is proposing a raft of measures designed to iron out the disparities between modes of transport ...[+++]while safeguarding fair competition and ensuring that the various modes complement each other more than ever before. This entails: - spreading the costs more equitably over the different forms of transport and charging users the full costs of using the infrastructure, including indirect ones such as pollution and other harm to the environment. - devising a combined transport system encompassing all the modes; technical and tax harmonization measures, research and development work and cooperation will be necessary to make such a system more attractive to users. 3. Trans-European transport networks The Commission will be lending its support to the development of these networks by helping to establish links between Member States' networks (interconnection) and ensuring that they dovetail smoothly with each other (interoperability).