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UITP calls for better funding in sustainable urban transport

Posted: 1 May 2018 | | No comments yet

As the European Commission prepares to release its draft post-2020 Multiannual Financial Framework, UITP pushes for better investment in cleaner urban mobility…

UITP calls for better funding in sustainable urban transport

UITP is calling on the European Commission to invest in sustainable urban mobility solutions to meet its climate change, energy efficiency and New Urban Agenda objectives.

The European Commission (EC) will present a comprehensive draft of the post-2020 Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) in May 2018. The MFF, which is the long-term budget for the European Union (EU), will provide a good understanding of what the EC’s priorities will be from 2020 onwards.

“Budgets are about priorities and ambitions,” according to EC President Claude Juncker, and it’s a position the UITP and its partners across Europe align themselves with.

Europe’s ambition to be a leader in the fight against climate will need to be translated into more concrete actions and important investments to help develop and implement new sustainable urban mobility solutions.

With 60 per cent of Europeans living in urban areas of over 10,000 inhabitants, and with urban mobility accounting for 40 per cent of all CO2 emissions of road transport, UITP has invited the EC to rethink the existing balance of the EU budget and to shift its focus on urban areas and local public transport services.

UITP has just released its own recommendations on behalf of the public transport sector to the EC, and says they should be supported by an increase in the existing funding levels for the urban mobility envelope under the EU funds and financing instruments.

“Investing to help develop new sustainable urban mobility solutions in empowered European cities is about everything that the EU stands for: inclusions, equality, innovation, well-paid jobs, sustainability and fighting against climate change,” said Ulrich Weber, Chair of the UITP European Union Committee. “The European Commission must be ambitious. It has an opportunity to clearly expose its will to be a leader in offering its citizens liveable cities in the next MFF”. 

In an official press release regarding the next post-2020 MFF, Claude Juncker stated that it was important to first discuss the Europe we want. In response, UITP stated that the answer to this question is clear: Europe wants sustainable mobility solutions, clean air and a healthy environment for our cities.