USDOT Secretary Mineta's Visit to the Netherlands

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 THE HAGUE 000963

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E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: EAIR OVIP EWWT NL
SUBJECT: USDOT Secretary Mineta's Visit to the Netherlands
April 4-5


1. Summary: In a meeting with Dutch Transport Minister
Karla Peijs, Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta
explained the U.S. negotiating position in the current
civair talks with the European Commission and asked for
Dutch support with other member states to conclude an
agreement. He and the minister also reviewed such issues as
road safety, traffic management, and inland waterways,
offering to share experiences and exchange best practices on
shared transportation problems. The two also visited the
Port of Rotterdam for a briefing on the port's security
measures and the presentation of compliance certificates to
five entities meeting the IMO's new International Ship and
Port Security (ISPS) requirements, which become mandatory on
July 1 of this year.

End summary.


2. Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta visited the
Netherlands April 4-5 for discussions with Dutch Minister of
Transport and Water Management Peijs and a visit to the Port
of Rotterdam. During a 90-minute meeting with the Minister
and several senior MOT staff, the Secretary reviewed and
defended the US position in the US-EU civair negotiations.
He explained that, although the US had initially preferred
not to put anything on the table that would require
legislative action, we were now prepared to go to the Hill
to request an increase in the allowable foreign ownership of
US carriers from 25 to 49 percent. On cabotage, however,
which he described as a "third rail" issue, the Secretary
said that he had made it clear to Commissioner Loyola de
Palacio that cabotage remained off the table. The Secretary
and Ambassador Sobel appealed to Minister Peijs for Dutch
support for concluding an agreement and for helping to
influence other member states, such as Germany, France, and
Italy. The Secretary commented that such support was
particularly valuable in view of the fact that some parties
would prefer to see no agreement at all. Minister Peijs
replied that the Netherlands was in favor of an agreement;
she added, however, that other Europeans questioned U.S.
intentions to go beyond the current talks to conclude
subsequent agreements and were therefore reluctant to agree
to anything short of a comprehensive deal.


3. When DOT Assistant Secretary for Aviation and
International Affairs Karan Bhatia noted that asked whether
some EU member states preferred not to see the Commission
score a big victory in the civair talks, out of concern that
this might advance the Commission's claims for competence
vis--vis the member states regarding other issues, Ministry
civair official Rene Fennes said that the Netherlands had no
such problem, seeing civil aviation as a natural area for
shared jurisdiction between the Commission and member
states. He also noted, and Minister Peijs concurred, that
the Netherlands could undertake some "quiet diplomacy" to
help facilitate internal EU consensus. He added, however,
that the Dutch had their own interests at stake in the
negotiations and would have to proceed cautiously. Minister
Peijs added that she thought that the Commission made a
better negotiating partner than the individual member states
for the U.S. on civair issues, as it made the two sides
better able to strike a balanced agreement. A/S Bhatia
commented that the U.S. had to proceed in a step-by-step
manner in the talks and that accepting the idea of pan-
European carriers, as exemplified by the KLM-Air France
merger, had been a major issue for us.

Road safety, better use of waterways
--------------

4. Turning to other issues, the Secretary said that he was
pleased that the World Health Organization had declared
traffic accidents to be a major public health problem, which
would help to focus greater attention on the issue. He said
that traffic accidents were the leading cause of death in
the US for the 18-34 age group and cost the economy some
$230 billion annually. Accordingly, the President had
issued a directive making made road safety a top
administration priority, and DOT was attacking the problem
on a variety of fronts. For example, better highway
engineering included such measures as rumble strips to alert
drivers to when they were veering off the road, improved
drainage to prevent hydroplaning and the loss of vehicle
control, and better lighting and signaling. The US is also
pressing ahead with anti-alcohol campaigns and trying to
raise seat belt usage to 90 percent from the current 79
percent. Twenty states now have `primary' seat belt laws
that allow police officers to stop vehicles and issue
citations for the lack of seat belt usage alone, rather than
`secondary' laws that permit such citations only when
drivers are stopped for some other cause. Minister Peijs
noted that the Netherlands had embarked on a public
education campaign targeted at getting children in the habit
of wearing seat belts, in the hope that they would then
pressure their parents to do likewise.


5. The Minister also described the Netherlands' efforts to
reduce overall congestion on the roads, particularly
involving hazardous cargo. She said that by 2007 there
would be a new rail line to Germany dedicated to freight,
which would be both faster and more efficient but also more
amenable to control from a security standpoint. Picking up
on the theme of moving freight off the highways, the
Secretary asked what the Netherlands is doing to promote

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short sea shipping. He commented that, while there was
considerable freight haulage along both the U.S. east and
west coasts and in the Mississippi basin, the Netherlands is
a leader in using both inland waterways and short sea
shipping. The Minister replied that an integrated port
traffic management system encompassing both ocean-bound and
inland shipping is vital for such operations, involving real-
time information on ship and barge movements and their
cargoes. Both sides indicated a desire to continue sharing
information on respective approaches to addressing traffic
congestion, with Minister Peijs inviting the Department to
send a representative to a conference on short sea shipping
being convened in the Netherlands in May, and the Secretary
inviting the Minister to meet with U.S. experts on road
tolling and tour some tolling facilities when she visits the
United States in October.

Improving transportation security
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6. The Minister also noted the vital role of security in
today's transportation system. After the Secretary
expressed appreciation for the Netherlands' early adoption
of the Container Security Initiative at Rotterdam, Minister
Peijs said that the Dutch had no regrets and saw the
absolute necessity of protecting such important national
assets as Schiphol Airport and the port of Rotterdam with
the most advanced security measures available. On the
radiological monitors at Rotterdam, the Minister said that
it had been bureaucratically difficult to get them approved,
due to the number of ministries involved, but that the
effort had been well worth it. The Secretary then outlined
the origin and development of the Transportation Security
Administration and its eventual move into the Department of
Homeland Security, adding that DOT retained responsibility
for air safety issues via the FAA, issues which sometimes
overlap with the security responsibilities of DHS.


7. The Minister then made a strong comment to the effect
that, while the Netherlands of course saw the need for
strict air security, the Dutch would like to have the
opportunity to discuss with the U.S. how best to achieve it,
rather than to receive unilateral directives. On PNR, she
said that her 14 years in the European Parliament had made
her well aware of Europarliamentarians' sensitivities on
privacy matters and suggested that a videoconference with
DHS officials might help to allay some of their concerns.
She also suggested that continuing communication efforts
with MEPs would be necessary in view of the expected
turnover of perhaps 60 percent in the European Parliamentary
elections to be held in June. Assistant Secretary Bhatia
noted that some MEPs were scheduled to come to Washington
this Spring in May and that this would be a good opportunity
to further the dialogue.

Visit to Port of Rotterdam
--------------

8. The Secretary and the Minister then proceeded to
Rotterdam for a visit to its harbor control center and a
boat tour of the port, the world's busiest in terms of
tonnage handled annually. Port officials provided an
overview of the operations of the port, which extends some
25 miles from the North Sea coast to the city of Rotterdam
and which handles some 30,000 sea-going and over 100,000
inland vessels per year. The port's information system,
displayed for the Secretary and the Minister, provides real-
time GPS-based data on the movements of vessels entering,
exiting, and moored at the port, with color coding used to
mark those bearing hazardous cargoes. The visit concluded
with a trip through the port, during which certificates were
presented by the Minister and Mayor of Rotterdam to five
companies (operators of shipping lines, ship repair
facilities, and port terminals) already in compliance with
the International Maritime Organization's International Ship
and Port Security (ISPS) code, due to go into effect on July
1 of this year.
SOBEL