MindsinMotion.net jubilee: EU Commissioner Tajani

The late François Lamoureux was Director-General Transport and Energy (DG TREN) of the European Commission (EC) in 2004. He held an introductory speech about the challenges for the European Union at the Energy in Motion conference.

The challenges Transport Commissioner Antonio Tajani faces today are not much smaller. But the European Union is an optimistic project, which is reflected in the Brussels' language. Mister Tajani's spokesperson answers our questions regarding the Commission's expectations five years ago, the successes and the years to come.

Great expectations
The spokesperson first goes into the expectations the EC had for sustainable mobility at the time, focusing on one project in particular: Civitas.

“Since 2002, the Civitas Initiative of the European Commission has supported cities in their efforts to move towards more sustainable urban transport systems by providing financial support for the implementation and evaluation of integrated sets of technical and policy-based measures.”

At the end of 2004 Civitas II was about to start. But did the EC bet on other solutions as well? Commissioner Tajani's spokesperson: “Civitas was one of the delivery mechanisms for the policy aims and objectives set out in the Transport White Paper European transport policy for 2010: time to decide [September 2001].” So there were more mechanisms.

Green, greener, greenest
Did the EC, as early as 2004, believe in stimulating 'green' cars, for instance? The car industry wouldn't dream of marketing green cars at the time, whereas today fuel efficiency is a main selling point – as we've seen in last week's interview with Ivan Hodac, secretary general of the European Automobile Manufacturers Organisation ACEA.

Tajani's spokesperson states: “The Commission has consistently worked on greening transport (the Greening Transport package of July 2008), and in particular greening cars.” He names a virtually endless list of measures to illustrate his point, most of which, however, came into operation only recently or are not in operation yet:

• “New Euro standards Euro V and VI for cars, and a new Euro standard Euro VI for Heavy Duty vehicles [...].
• A binding CO2 emission standard for cars [...]. Fleet average limit values of 130 g CO2/km will be phased in between 2012 and 2015. [...]
• A revision of the Fuel Quality Directive, adopted in spring 2009, requires a 6% reduction in the CO2 intensity of the fuel pathway by 2020.
• The Renewable Energy Directive, adopted in spring 2009, sets a mandatory target of 10% share of renewable fuels in motor fuels by 2020. [...]
• The Biofuel Cities programme [...].
• The Green Cars Initiative of the European Economic Recovery Plan focuses on the development and market preparation for electric vehicles and further improvements of energy efficiency and environmental performance of internal combustion engines [...].”

Read the entire list here.

No problem
So the expectations were high in 2004. How did it all turn out, in the positive and the negative sense?

“Civitas,” according to Commissioner Tajani's spokesperson, “has provided cities with an opportunity to develop new urban mobility solutions, to cooperate across Europe and to exchange experience and best practice. Over six hundred measures have been implemented to date and with the Civitas Forum a network of cities has been formed which today brings together politicians and practitioners from some 170 European towns and cities.

“Civitas is currently in its third phase with 58 cities having profited directly from EU support and many others having profited indirectly through networking, training and other activities supported by Civitas.”

When asked if all of the eight Civitas measure fields are running equally well, he answers: “So far, there has been no indication that the implementation and evaluation of measures in a particular field has been proven to be particularly problematic.” But we're not convinced that a “less car intensive lifestyle”, to name one of the fields, is winning ground.

The spokesperson stresses: “The Commission has always taken a longer term view and has never sought to mandate technologies. The approach has been to set policy targets on key parameters such as greenhouse gas emissions and leave it to the industry to develop appropriate technology.”

Cynicism
Whereas transport ecologist Udo Becker is disappointed by the car industry's cynicism (as you can read in last month's interview), the Commissioner's spokesperson is positive about their cooperation. “Car industry has made great progress, both in improving the energy efficiency and environmental performance of conventional vehicles, and in developing new alternative vehicle technology.

• The last two years have seen the largest reduction in average CO2 emission values since Community efforts in that area started, particular from premium car manufacturers.
• New car models complying with Euro VI standards are already available on the market, well ahead of their mandatory application date.
• All major car manufacturers are now bringing hybrid vehicles to the market, which offer a substantial step forward in energy efficiency.
• All major automotive manufacturers are working on new electric vehicles which should come onto the market over the next years.”

The spokesperson is not willing to answer Ivan Hodac' question what the EC is doing to promote the integrated approach beyond pushing the car industry, for instance through the infrastructure directive and by pushing the oil industry. (see the Hodac interview)

On the menu
We ask what the EC plans are for the next five years and further.

“The current Civitas projects will be running until 2012,” the spokesperson answers. “In terms of the future of Civitas post 2012, the Commission has announced in its recently published Action Plan on Urban Mobility that it 'will continue to financially support the successful CIVITAS Initiative beyond the third generation of projects that started in 2008. It has launched a review to define the most appropriate way forward.'”