Karima Delli MEP (Greens/EFA, France) has explained that if she is elected chairperson of the European Parliament’s Transport and Tourism Committee, she wants to create “EU mobility Start-up awards” according to the priorities she included in her candidacy letter examined by EUROPE on Thursday 19 January.
Ms Delli also said that she wanted to ensure that the Europe of Nations and Freedom (ENF) cannot get hold of any reports in future.
In her candidacy letter the MEP explains, “I would like to let our best talents in, by creating the ‘First EU Mobility Start-ups Awards’ that will hopefully become as famous as the Lux or Sakharov's prizes”. She also said that this prestigious prize should help shed light on the new generation building tomorrow's innovations.
In this regard, the MEP is looking at developing a major project: changing the transport paradigm by shifting to a “Post-car society”. In this context, Ms Delli would like the TRAN Committee to spearhead this transition and step up its work with other committees, particularly: the Environment Committee (ENVI) and the Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee (IMCO) in an effort to create a new framework for the electric cars of the future; - the Industry, Research and Energy Committee (ITRE) to prepare the sector’s transition; - and finally, with the Employment Committee (EMPL), in an effort to ensure the fight against social dumping is effective.
With these objectives in view, she also wants to ensure the transition to e-mobility by bringing forward connected cars and, in the long term, autonomous vehicles. The MEP would also like the TRAN Committee to draw up guidelines to “prevent any future abuses by companies like Uber”.
Preventing ENF getting new dossiers. In a perspective that has less of a direct connection with her portfolio at the TRAN Committee, Ms Delli would also like to take on the industrial lobby and increase the work of the committee’s transparency. On one particularly interesting point, the MEP said that she considers that too many “crucial” reports wind up in the hands of the extreme right ENF group and on that basis, wants to find “a modus operandi with all the other groups to make sure ENF does not spread its hatred via our Committee”.
On Tuesday 17 January, Ms Delli was nominated by her group by a whisker when she received 24 votes as opposed to the 21 votes for Michael Cramer from Germany, the current chair of TRAN, with 4 abstentions (see EUROPE 11706). One source from the group said that this vote was a vote “for renewal, women and youth” and resonated with the reshuffle at the head of the group that saw Ska Keller from Germany replace her compatriot, Rebecca Harms. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)