At the risk of being repetitive, we must insist: the road freight transport sector is strategic. It is so for any country and even more so for ours, whose goods export capacity has more than 66% of its destinations in its EU partners. And it will also be necessary to insist that its professionals are among those who should be considered “essential”, those who cannot stay at home when confinements are decreed to prevent the spread of infections. Those for which you have to start implementing the protection measures that are becoming known, from EPI to the first vaccines.
The embarrassing Brexit episodes in December, in which thousands of professional drivers saw them taken hostage for several days, returned to television screens, radio stations and the front pages of newspapers, reflected reality. that without the road logistics sector the operation of the productive activity and the consumption of the population cannot be conceived, in short, the real economy and the well-being of the citizenry. Finally, at the beginning of February, the European Council recommended to its 27 Member States that they guarantee the passage of road transport companies through the green lanes or green corridors in the face of retentions at border crossings caused by the Covid-19 test controls.
For weeks, beyond this well-being, the vaccination campaign has now been added. Everyone has been able to verify that the enormous scientific effort carried out by the laboratories of the largest companies in the pharmaceutical sector and universities on the planet to design, first, the vaccine and then manufacture the billions of doses required would be in danger of being rendered useless if distribution logistics, with road transport as its key link, should fail. Thousands of excellent health professionals in health centers would also see how their willingness to serve and their know-how would be impotent if the containers with the doses necessary to fulfill their mission of immunizing millions of patients as soon as possible were not delivered to each vaccination center. citizens.
I think there are not many better examples than this of how essential and strategic logistics can be due to its efficiency and effectiveness. Huge efforts of the highest scientific and industrial level, on the one hand, with the enormous needs of the population in the hands of their toilets, on the other, they would be impossible to connect without those trucks traveling the roads in all corners of the geography, driven by professionals who, unfortunately, are about to add to the list of endangered species without the authorities or road transport users appearing to be very concerned.
In view of all the above, it is difficult to believe the systematic neglect that professionals, companies and their sectoral representatives have suffered from the most varied echelons of the Administration, both from the field of transport itself and from the labor perspective , road safety, training or digital agenda. We have another recent example of collective amnesia about the backbone role of road freight transport, which generates almost 5% of Spain’s GDP. Their companies have been left out of the 7,000 million direct government aid, despite suffering an economic footprint of 5,000 million due to the pandemic.
Many things seem to be changing due to the fight against Covid, but nothing seems to alter the historical disinterest in providing this country with a business fabric capable of solidifying road transport so that it can create and maintain quality jobs , correct the overwhelming gender imbalance that is suffered, with only 3% women among professional drivers, minimize environmental impact and deepen digitization.
If this ostrich policy is not corrected, we will not take long to regret it, since it will not be possible to maintain, much less perfect, the constant, reliable and sustainable interconnection that our modern societies demand between the centers of production and the consumers of goods or, in in this case, the vaccine recipients. A vital connection for the economic prosperity and well-being of the population, which only the road is capable of offering.
Marcos Basante is president of the International Road Transport Association (Astic)
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