Strategy for sustainable and smart mobility

Related Press release

Key points:

• The EESC supports the general approach of integrating the strategy into the European Green Deal and placing special emphasis on actions aimed at achieving the climate goals. However, it questions whether the balance between technical measures and transport policy measures is appropriate for achieving them. It particularly emphasises that many of the actions proposed with respect to sustainability and digitalisation have wide-ranging effects on the single market and transport workers. Insufficient attention to this can potentially impact successful implementation. 
• A successful EU mobility strategy must also go hand in hand with strengthening the competitiveness of the transport sector as a whole and the EU’s related industrial base. 
• The pandemic has dramatically highlighted the situation of thousands of workers stranded across Europe and worldwide while faced with precarious work contracts. It also puts the searchlight on a social crisis in transport since transport policies over the past decades with a focus on the single market have failed to prevent worsening working conditions in all transport modes. Here, the EESC sees an urgent need for applying the same level of ambition to a socially sustainable transport system. In addition, a near future crisis contingency plan must seek to prevent negative effects for transport workers. 
• The EESC underlines the importance of obtaining broad support for a green, social and digital transition from all stakeholders in civil society, including the social partners, and stands ready to contribute to a dialogue with civil society in order to shape and implement the strategy. The strategy rightly states that a shift towards sustainable, smart and resilient mobility must be just or else not take place.