News

The project ‘Logistics Emissions Accounting and Reduction Network’ (LEARN) empowers business to reduce the carbon footprint across their global logistics supply chain through improved emissions accounting.

CLECAT and other consortium partners of the LEARN project invite interested parties to join the LEARN International Workshop on 4 and 5 April 2017 in Brussels. The event brings together private sector, government and civil society stakeholders with an interest in reducing the carbon footprint of the global freight and logistics sector.

Following the publication in July 2016 of the European Commission’s Strategy on Low-Emission Mobility, the European Parliament is drafting an own-initiative report setting out MEPs’ views on the strategy. Ahead of the work in the Parliament’s TRAN and ENVI committees, CLECAT has prepared a briefing for MEPs on issues of importance to logistics, freight forwarding and customs services, which should be taken into account in the Parliament’s report. CLECAT is largely supportive of the Commission’s strategy of CO2 emissions from transport (land, sea and air transport). The Commission takes a realistic approach and CLECAT agrees with the analysis and the challenge: transport and logistics need to continue to provide good mobility and connectivity but with less emissions. CLECAT welcomes the fact that the Commission continues to work on a broad and wide range of relevant issues for reducing emissions.

CLECAT calls for EU initiatives to make the cabotage regulation easier to enforce and simplified. Creating a Single European Transport Market should remain the aim and therefore we call for a gradual, managed process where liberalisation and harmonisation of the rules are carried out together.

The report of Kaja Kallas (ALDE/Estonia) on the Commission proposal for a directive on customs infringement and sanctions has been adopted on the 14th of July by the IMCO Committee, with 24 votes in favour, 4 against and 3 abstentions. In comparison with the initial proposal from the Commission, CLECAT is of the opinion that the text adopted by the IMCO Committee is an improvement.

On 7 June 2016, Steve Parker, President of CLECAT, expressed the views of the European freight forwarders on the UCC during the XXXIII ALACAT (Federation of National Associations of Freight Forwarders and International Logistics Operators in Latin America and the Caribbean) Congress held in Barcelona.

The European Commission has adopted a decision that renders legally binding the commitments offered by fourteen container liner shipping companies. The commitments aim to increase price transparency for customers and to reduce the likelihood of coordinating prices. CLECAT supported the move and called on the Commission to maintain scrutiny over pricing practices.

A universal method to calculate the carbon footprint of the logistics supply chain was released yesterday by the Global Logistics Emissions Council (GLEC) in Washington. GLEC, of which CLECAT is a member, is a group of companies, industry associations and programs, and backed by leading experts and other stakeholders.

CLECAT attended on Monday and Tuesday this week, the TEN-T days in Rotterdam. Ministers from 22 European Union Member States and over 2,800 transport experts and CEOs joined the 2016 edition of the high-level transport conference.

CLECAT has been following closely the results of the 23 June referendum in the UK, which saw British voters choose to leave the European Union. Nicolette van der Jagt, Director General of CLECAT said that she had hoped for a different outcome, and that the EU will in the future miss policy input of a country which has been a driving force for the single market, better regulation and open global trade