In an open letter addressed to Adina Vălean, the Commissioner for Transport, the ACEA, CLECAT, ESPORG, and the UETR praised the allocation of €1.5bn towards secure lorry parking in the EU.
The signatories of the letter believe the funding could result in the creation of some 60-70 000 high quality safe and secure truck parking spots in the coming 5-7 years. This represents a ten-fold increase from the current levels.
However, the aforementioned organisations also warn in the letter that the results of the recent calls for applications have shown a number of inefficiencies and shortcomings. It is said that if these issues are not urgently addressed, it would undermine the full and efficient use of the available EU funding. In turn, this would compromise the expected improvement of drivers’ working and rest conditions.
In particular, the letter refers to four areas that need to be “urgently addressed” in a partnership between the European Commission services and the industry. They are as follows:
- Firstly, a dedicated joint large promotional campaign should be urgently organized to reach all interested parties across Europe and drastically increase the number of good applications for EU co-funding.
- Secondly, the quality of the applications must be radically improved, via targeted trainings and advisory services, to be provided to interested applicants, by the industry itself.
- In addition, targeted modifications of the selection criteria should be urgently introduced, such as the inclusion of the comprehensive network in the eligibility criteria.
- Promoting synergies between TEN-T and TEN-E by enabling additional co-funding opportunities for high-capacity charging stations and in general for the deployment of alternative fuels infrastructure for HGV on SSTPAs.
The organisations hope these changes could be made in time for the funding round this September, if not the the following funding round a year later.
It is said that making these changes would “radically increase the number and improve the quality of applications, so that the entire amount of EU funding available for SSTPAs is allocated to projects both under the general and cohesion envelops.”
“In addition, and in order to guarantee a full use of the available EU funding for SSTPAs, we kindly invite the European Commission to re-allocate the non-utilised amounts from the 2021 call and the expected non-utilised amounts from the upcoming 2022 call in September, for two new rounds of calls, to be carried out in 2024 and 2025,” reads the letter.
The signatories of the letter believe that within 1-2 years, such measures could “unlock the full potential of the sector to the benefit of EU’s economy and society, while at the same time the EU SSTPAs standard will be acknowledged as the leading global truck parking standard, which could be widely followed and implemented in countries and regions well beyond the EU.”
The parties also said it would appreciate the opportunity to have a meeting with Commission regarding the proposals.
Photo: Erich Ferdinand / Flickr / CC BY 2.0