Sector & service specialists

Transport was dominated by the two C’s — climate and COVID — and that is still the case this year but now Ukraine has to be added to the list with air transport.  But there’s a lot more that is happening in mobility — from figuring out the details of phasing out combustion engine cars to continuing battles over trucking reforms and the never-ending effort to streamline air traffic services.  All this means that the transport sector has been beefing up its representation in Brussels massively in 2022.

Clearly COVID-19 has hit many aspects of the transport sector, particularly airlines.  However, in normal times transport is a major contributor to the economy (4.8% – or €548bn – in gross value added overall for EU countries), and sustains over 11 million jobs in Europe. As our societies become more mobile again, EU policy aims to help our transport systems meet the major challenges facing them including congestion, oil dependency, greenhouse gas emissions, infrastructure and competition.

There are numerous Brussels transport associations from the global International Association of Public Transport (UITP) to those representing individual sectors from airlines to railways, and from bicycles to electric vehicles. Many of Brussels top 20 corporate affairs spenders like BMW and Daimler have a stake in the transport debate, as does Number 1 Google.