At its plenary session in Strasbourg on Tuesday evening, 18 June, the European Parliament was almost unanimous in calling for increased investment to improve public transport services and infrastructure.
Several MEPs mentioned the difficulties encountered by many people in getting around. “According to Eurostat, almost one in three Europeans live in sparsely populated areas: more than 137 million citizens live in rural, mountain or outlying areas”, said Antonella Sberna (ECR, Italian). “40% of my compatriots live in rural areas, where the car is not a luxury, but a necessity”, lamented Dariusz Joński (EPP, Polish).
Other elected representatives put forward arguments in favour of the environment. “Europe reduced its CO2 emissions by 37% between 1990 and 2023. Yet pollution from transport continues to rise. It’s 25% more than in 1990”, stressed François Kalfon (S&D, French).
Several solutions to resolve the problem were discussed, including the budget issue. Mr Kalfon proposed increasing the European transport budget from €25 billion to €100 billion to fund low-carbon mobility in major cities, such as introducing metropolitan RER trains.
“The next Multiannual Financial Framework must provide significant funding to support local authorities and regions that want to modernise public transport and purchase vehicles or infrastructure components made in Europe”, said Kosma Złotowski (ECR, Polish), supported by Lena Schilling (Greens/EFA, Austrian).
Nina Carberry (EPP, Irish) argued in favour of strengthening the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) in the post-2027 Multiannual Financial Framework (see EUROPE 13636/24).
The Germans Jan-Christoph Oetjen (Renew Europe) and Kai Tegethoff (Greens/EFA) supported the liberalisation of ticketing systems (see EUROPE 13557/10). “I hope the European Commission will finally make a proposal to simplify ticketing so that people can book their ticket with just one click on their mobile phone, from their point of departure to their destination”, said Mr Oetjen.
For his part, European Commissioner for Sustainable Transport and Tourism Apóstolos Tzitzikóstas called on Member States to take responsibility, particularly through their recovery plans and the revision of the trans-European transport network (TEN-T) regulation. (Original version in French by Anne Damiani)