The European Commission will present a declaration on cycling this summer, announced its Executive Vice-President Frans Timmermans on Thursday 9 March, during his opening address at the ‘2023 Cycling Industries Europe’ summit.
The declaration will likely propose easy principles for encouraging people to cycle and explain how the EU strategy for sustainable and intelligent mobility should put these principles into practice.
The announcement of this future European strategy for cycling comes as MEPs adopted a resolution on the subject (see EUROPE 13123/7) in plenary session on Thursday 16 February, put forward by the Chair of the European Parliament’s Committee on Transport, Karima Delli (Greens/EFA, French).
“I am delighted that the European Commission has jumped on the bandwagon so quickly”, commented Ms Delli, following Mr Timmermans’ statement.
“We believe that it is possible to double the number of jobs in this sector and reach 2 million jobs by 2030. This implies favourable measures to relocate the industry, to defend ‘Made in Europe’ and to make bicycles cheaper thanks to the reduced VAT measures and the mobility packages that are included in the European Parliament’s resolution”, she added. (Original version in French by Thomas Mangin)