European road freight stakeholders outline demands to EC

Yesterday marked the start of a new legislative term in the EU, and road freight stakeholders have listed their demands on what needs to be done to improve the sector. 

The International Road Transport Union (IRU) listed “people, environment and prosperity” as its priorities for the new European parliament to address. 

Regarding ‘people’, it called for measures that ease access into the driving profession and enhance training in the wake of “the most acute shortage of drivers in decades”. 

‘Prosperity’ outlined the need for targeted regulation that supports road transport and does not burden operators e.g. enhanced digitalisation of transport documents and data. 

The environmental demands stated that there needed to be “realistic” CO2 standards set for HGV operators – the IRU previously hit out at the EC for strict targets that were unattainable for SME hauliers due to the cost of decarbonising vehicle fleets.  

It also pushed for an EU-coordinated “country-by-country gap analysis” to evaluate grid upgrades needed to support “the huge additional power demand required for industrial transformation”.  

Meanwhile, in Germany, the Federal Association of Road Haulage, Logistics and Disposal (BGL), the Federal Association for Self-Logistics & Shippers (BWVL) and Transport & Environment (T&E) have urged the traffic light coalition to “urgently take road freight transport into account in order to achieve the climate targets in the transport sector”.  

The German Federal Government’s growth initiative is to be adopted by the cabinet today together with the 2025 budget. 

However, “the key issues outlined on the growth initiative, published in advance, do not show the necessary impetus that the sector needs”, according to the three associations. 

Currently, 85% of freight traffic in Germany is from trucks on the road, and the associations have thus called for support on the electrification of heavy-duty transport. 

They highlighted that more subsidies and grants are needed to promote the purchase of electricity-based fleets. In particular, funding for the expansion of the depot charging infrastructure. 

BGL board spokesman, Dirk Engelhardt, said: “Without real government subsidies for vehicle procurement and the development of company charging infrastructure, medium-sized transport and logistics companies will not be able to manage the transformation process by 2030.” 

Further, existing KfW loan programmes for commercial vehicles “need to be expanded and made more attractive in order to create real economic incentives for the purchase of battery-electric and hydrogen-powered commercial vehicles,” said the associations. 

BWVL managing director, Markus Olligschläger, urged: “The drive turnaround must be feasible for all those involved in the process, i.e. it must be affordable if massive cuts in the structure of the German transport and logistics industry are to be avoided.”