Before the latest geopolitical shock, EU road freight volumes had been expected to continue a moderate recovery in 2026 and 2027. However, IRU says the outbreak of war in Iran on 28 February 2026, together with escalating global trade tensions, has changed the outlook and made short-term forecasting far less reliable.
According to the report, fuel prices surged by around 20% across the EU in the weeks following the outbreak of war, sharply increasing operating costs for hauliers already working with tight margins. IRU adds that this is happening at the same time as supply chains are being reconfigured and trade flows redirected, creating a more fragmented market in which some corridors may gain traffic while others come under pressure.
The report adds that IRU’s mid-March monitoring showed a 20% rise in EU diesel prices, with the largest increase recorded in Spain, while Ireland had the highest pump price at €2.3 per litre. It also notes that diesel had already moved above €2 per litre in Finland, France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands.
Costs rising from several directions
IRU argues that the current squeeze is not only about fuel. It says several EU regulatory changes due in the coming years are likely to make diesel truck operation more expensive, including the extension of ETS2 to road transport, the spread of CO2-based tolling under the Eurovignette framework, and tighter heavy-duty vehicle CO2 standards.
The report says ETS2, currently scheduled for 2028, will effectively embed a carbon cost into fossil fuels used by road transport. IRU writes that an ETS2 price of €50–100 per tonne of CO2 could push diesel prices at the pump up by around 10%, while some projections point to much higher carbon prices later in the decade.
At the same time, the report says the Netherlands and Romania are scheduled to roll out Eurovignette-related charging changes in 2026, while other countries are expected to follow in the coming years. In IRU’s view, these developments will raise the total cost of ownership of diesel fleets and strengthen the economic case for lower-emission alternatives, even though uptake of zero-emission trucks remains uneven across Europe.
Capacity is another concern. IRU says new EU truck registrations fell by 6% in 2025 compared with 2024, pointing to slower fleet renewal at a time when operators are also struggling to fill driving jobs. Preliminary results from IRU’s annual driver shortage survey show that 12.1% of driver positions were unfilled in 2025, with shortages especially acute in eastern EU countries and also high in Germany and Spain.
The report adds that contract rates overtook spot rates in late 2025, which IRU interprets as a sign that shippers were moving to secure capacity for longer periods as concerns about future availability grew.
Trade shifts could reshape freight corridors
Alongside energy costs, IRU also points to growing external trade pressure. The report says the US and China together account for a large share of EU external trade, and that new US tariff measures are expected to weigh particularly on export-oriented industrial corridors, especially those linked to machinery and chemicals.
IRU says chemicals and machinery were the two main drivers of the EU’s 2024 trade surplus, but both are highly exposed to the US market. It notes that the US accounts for around 21% of EU machinery and transport equipment exports and 31% of chemical exports, making corridors tied to those sectors vulnerable if US demand weakens under higher tariffs.
The report also warns that trade diversion could bring more Chinese goods into Europe, increasing competitive pressure on EU manufacturers and potentially reshaping freight flows inside the bloc. According to IRU, the result is likely to be greater divergence between corridors rather than one uniform trend across the whole European road freight market.
Despite these pressures, the briefing shows that the market did recover modestly in 2024. Across the EU, Norway, Switzerland and the UK, road freight volumes rose by 0.5% year on year to 2.08 trillion tonne-kilometres, making 2024 the third-strongest year on record even if still below the post-pandemic peak.
IRU also notes that operational efficiency remains one of the few levers operators can still control directly. The report says empty running in the EU has fallen to around 20%, average payloads have stabilised at roughly 14.3 tonnes per loaded trip, and fuel intensity per tonne-kilometre has improved over the past decade.
