Opened the nesting doll

European transport workers reached Russia

The session of the European Conference of Ministers of Transport (ECMT) opened yesterday in Moscow with the personal participation of two Russian prime ministers - the current and the former. The extraordinary attention shown at the highest political level to this industry event is explained by the fact that of the 89 ECMT sessions held so far, this is the first on Russian soil.

Opening the session, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov spoke about the emergence of a new trend: more and more high-ranking foreigners are regularly coming to Moscow. “May 2005 turned out to be very eventful in terms of the arrival of distinguished foreign guests in Moscow,” he recalled. “Two weeks ago, heads of more than 50 foreign states took part in the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Great Victory over Nazism.”

Former Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov, speaking in his current capacity as president of the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, praised the ECMT, founded 52 years ago, for its longevity. “Many other professional organizations were created. Not all of them have survived to this day,” noted the 75-year-old veteran of big politics.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who did not personally attend the session, also mentioned the venerable age of the conference in his written greeting. “Over decades of active activity, your representative organization has gained high authority and made a significant contribution to the development of international cooperation,” he wrote to the event participants.

However, ECMT Secretary General Jack Short involuntarily emphasized in his speech that Russian transport workers did not go through the entire glorious half-century journey in the same ranks with their European colleagues. “We are very pleased that Russia has been an active member of our organization for more than ten years,” said Mr. Short. To be scrupulously precise, in 1993 Russia acquired only the status of an associated member of the ECMT, and fully joined the organization even later, in 1998.

Mr Short rightly called Russia “the largest member of the ECMT”, but could not resist demonstrating a slightly popular impression of it. The Secretary General recalled Churchill’s textbook phrase about the essence of our country (“a riddle wrapped in a secret”), and on his own he compared Russia to a nesting doll, hiding so much in itself that you wouldn’t think at first glance.

The chairman of the session, Russian Minister of Transport Igor Levitin, expressed the hope from the forum’s rostrum that the meeting in Moscow would give colleagues the opportunity for fruitful informal contacts. “But, of course, we don’t have to work all the time,” Mr. Short emphasized in his opening remarks. “While we are in this country, let us take the opportunity to see some of its treasures and meet some of its people.” “I am sure that you will appreciate the beauty of Moscow,” the capital’s mayor, Yuri Luzhkov, who, like Putin, sent his delegate to the session with a message, wrote in the tone of the secretary general (probably without saying a word).

However, yesterday afternoon the heads of European transport departments did not leave the World Trade Center, where the session is taking place. Until the end of the day, they discussed trends in trade exchanges between Europe and Asia in the light of globalization, as well as the reform of the continental system for admitting vehicles to foreign markets. For Russia, the second question was of lively practical interest. Officials of the Ministry of Transport called the achievement of a solution acceptable to it the day before as the main national task within the framework of this ECMT session. The problem is that with the spread of EU norms to Eastern European states, the interstate system of quotas and licenses, developed 30 years ago, has taken a sharp turn. Automobile enterprises of EU member countries operate in a single space. But for drivers from non-EU countries, this space is not at all uniform. They are forced to obtain licenses in each EU state according to the old quota system.

Yesterday, the ECMT secretariat proposed to the session to introduce a compromise system of criteria and calculation of quotas from January 1, 2006. As the press service of the Russian Ministry of Transport reported yesterday, the session approved this new system “taking into account possible adjustments.”

Mikhail KUKUSHKIN