MEP Gyöngyösi: In defence of motoring

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MEP Márton Gyöngyösi’s (Non-attached) thoughts via press release:

All of us were taught at school that the rise of the Western world, with Europe in it, was largely due to the concurrent presence of such key conditions for progress as individual rights, including the right to freedom of movement, freedom of research and openness to development.

Of course, if you try to draw the balance of the two centuries that have passed since the beginning of the industrial revolution, you will see a lot of problems: environment pollution is certainly a grave issue and it is our common interest to reduce it. On the other hand, we have the positive impacts of technological progress, such as the healthier living environment (if you doubt it, just move in a cob house with no utilities), the triumph over dozens of once fatal diseases, and the major growth of life expectancy.

In today’s Europe, even those living in relative hardship still enjoy a lot more safety and welfare than a hundred and fifty years ago.

However, the spread of the benefits and the western lifestyle causes more and more people to forget what the world would be like without these technological achievements. The European Union has several political forces that rely on an idealized and non-existent state of nature to make people feel guilty for wanting to enjoy the fruits of their labour, live in comfortable conditions or even for daring to commute to work.

Posing as progressives and greens in their naive idealism, the “lifestyle leftist” politicians use the sublime principles of nature conservation to deny the achievements of technological advancement and, perhaps unknowingly, attack the freedom and equality of European people.

By setting their sights on the easy target of automobiles, demanding to impose excessive congestion charges and mindlessly banning cars from cities and even internal combustion engines in general, they would throw society back to where we left off 200 years ago. There would be the privileged city dwellers who would live close to the highest-paying jobs and form a new aristocracy, while others who create a home for themselves in the country and a bit farther from the centre would simply be pushed to the periphery.

I am convinced that mobility and motoring are not only environmental but economic and cultural issues as well.

The upcoming years will see a fierce struggle unfolding between those who are ready to restrict the most fundamental human rights on the grounds of nature conservation and those who would rather follow a balanced approach by striving for sensible and realistic solutions while still taking the downsides of technological progress into account.

As a centre-right conservative politician, I believe those who aim to make the technological conditions of car usage more expensive and less accessible are actually working against people’s freedom.

Banning petrol and diesel engines instead of improving them would reduce personal mobility to the privilege of a small elite, thus turning millions of Europeans into second-class citizens. We must not let that happen.

Responsible political forces always strive for balance and harmonious development. I wish to follow this prudent path. That’s the reason why I oppose the political restrictions of technological development, and stand for people’s right to freely choose when and how they want to change their location. The automobile is still the most universal device ever invented for such purpose.

Disclaimer: the sole liability for the opinions stated rests with the author(s). These opinions do not necessarily reflect the official position of the European Parliament.