It is clear from the draft white paper on the future Common Transport Policy that, as with other modes of transport, the European Commission will focus in the coming years on internalising the external costs of maritime and inland waterway transport. For climate change, it prefers international solutions worked out in the International Maritime Organisation (IMO). The discussions under way in the framework of the Cancun negotiations will therefore determine the future course of events. In the absence of an international agreement on the reduction of maritime transport emissions, the EU will take action, proposing to include maritime transport in the EU's Emission Trading Scheme (ETS). The same applies to inland waterway transport: the executive prefers international negotiations - in the context of international agreements on navigation on Europe's main rivers -but this does not rule out the possibility of targeted EU action.
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