Fiscal federalism and regionalisation of transport policy in Europe

The growth of mobility resulted in a change of transport policy in many countries. The administrative structure to deal with the transport problems has been reconsidered as well. This issue directly refers to the theory of fiscal federalism. which offers guidelines for the administrative organisation. In the paper attempts in the Netherlands, Germany and France to deal with the changed transportation patterns and its resulting problems are described and analysed. In these countries trends of regionalisation may be recognised, but all of them try to tackle the problems another way. It is concluded that in the studied countries fiscal federalist insights are not being used as they could have been.