The European Automobile Manufacturers Association has outlined its priorities for the commercial vehicle and transport sectors, as the new European Parliament comes to office.
The European body plans to find a balance between expanding mobility needs and green issues.
ACEA’s idea is to ensure the industry focuses itself on what it describes as the three pillars of sustainability, environmental, economic and social, and to ensure that the sector doesn’t solely focus on one area over the others.
To achieve this, ACEA hopes to encourage the use of the most efficient transport mode available, alongside continual improvement and maintenance of the road network. As well as developing and implementing policies already outlined, such as the Euro-6 review and clean air packages.
ACEA also plans to push and maintain the research and development programme for Europe, for example the Eurovignette project, which is a revision of how trucks circulating in Europe are taxed and charged.
For commercial and automotive R&D projects to continue, ACEA says the sector needs a share of the funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme. This is a scheme for funding research and innovation that would supplement ongoing projects like the European Green Vehicles Initiative and other road transport schemes.
Erik Jonnaert, Secretary General at ACEA, said, “The automobile industry invests €32 billion annually in R&D. Helping the industry leverage this R&D investment through Horizon 2020 is just one route via which the fruits of research and innovation can be rolled out to European consumers and transport operators in the form of cleaner, safer and more connected vehicles.”
One area ACEA has to address is how member states’ authorities type approve vehicles and the need swiftly to resolve issues that arise, which it believes can be solved by monitoring laws and procedures with an emphasis on ‘harmonisation and enforcement’.
