I call on the Government to immediately take a systematic approach to tackling the problem of road freight in transit through our country.
Developed neighbouring countries have long since realised that road freight transit traffic does far more harm than good. The traffic accidents, daily congestion, noise and pollution are far from outweighing the EUR 100 million in tolls collected, which is the income of a medium-sized company in Slovenia.
Austria recognised the problem long ago and has been actively tackling it for at least two decades. It has used soft measures (speed limits, night driving bans, extended weekend bans, border controls, strict punishment of offenders, driving bans for vehicles with higher emissions) to ensure that transit freight traffic bypassed it almost completely and was diverted via Slovenia. The only remaining problem is at the Brenner Pass, where transit freight traffic will be banned or at least severely restricted after 2026, once the base rail tunnel is opened. Austria follows the principle that the free movement of goods should have borders where the health of citizens is at risk.
And what have our governments been doing all this time? They have nipped in the bud any suggestion of restriction by claiming that road freight transport is fully liberalised in the EU. Which is, of course, a plain lie, and the proof is our northern neighbour.
The Minister for Infrastructure is now promising a new expressway from Ptuj to Ormož and from Postojna to Jelšany. So spot measures that will only make the situation worse in the long term. The previous government offered us the second track as a solution, with the slogan 'trucks to trains', but it ignored the fact that the transit freight traffic generated by the Port of Koper represents a completely insignificant proportion, since the transit freight traffic through our country is generated almost entirely by Italian industry.
The only project that was aimed at systematically reducing road transit freight traffic was the Divača - Trieste railway project, which was irresponsibly abandoned by the government of Mr Cerar in 2015.
I therefore call on the government to stop burying its head in the sand and to immediately start tackling a problem that governments should have tackled at least ten years ago. He should look to the Austrians for how this is done. And do not push the solution into the distant future, because it is long overdue.