The informal meeting to be held in Bucharest (Romania) on Tuesday 26 and Wednesday 27 March will provide an opportunity for transport ministers from the EU Member States to discuss multimodal transport, the Future of Mobility in the EU and the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T).
Multimodal transport will be the subject of the first exchange at this meeting, which will be attended by Violeta Bulc, the European Commissioner for Transport Policy.
The ministers will discuss developments in multimodality over the past four years, particularly with regard to regulations and recommendations on the subject or on investments. Multimodality is at the heart of the debate on the revision of Directive 92/106/EEC on combined transport, which was the subject of interinstitutional negotiations ('trilogues') that begun and ended due to disagreements between Member States' ambassadors ('Coreper') on the negotiating mandate (see EUROPE 12211/12).
The second session of discussions will focus on the Future of Mobility in the EU, and in particular on the role of digitisation as part of a strategy for sustainable mobility, and on coordination between Member States towards zero emissions mobility of CO₂. Grațiela Leocadia Gavrilescu, Deputy Prime Minister and Romanian Minister of the Environment, will speak on the Long-Term European Union Climate Change Strategy.
Finally, the ministers will discuss the implementation of the TEN-T and the implications for territorial connectivity and cohesion. It should be recalled that discussions are ongoing in the EU Council’s Working Party on Transport - Intermodal Questions and Networks on streamlining measures for advancing the realisation of the TEN-T (see EUROPE 12203/12). The European Parliament has already expressed its views on this issue (see EUROPE 12193/9).
A conference on the TEN-T and the Connecting Europe Facility will also be held on 28 March. (Original version in French by Lucas Tripoteau)