The chairs of the European Parliament’s political groups decided yesterday to allocate the Clean Corporate Vehicles file to both the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI) and the Committee on Transport and Tourism (TRAN), overturning an earlier provisional allocation to only ENVI.
Following the European Commission’s publication of the Clean Corporate Vehicles proposal in December as part of the Automotive package, the Parliament is now setting the framework for its legislative scrutiny by designating the responsible committees.
IRU welcomes the decision to involve both ENVI and TRAN. While the proposal is driven by environmental objectives, it will have significant structural implications for the road transport ecosystem and therefore requires balanced consideration of both environmental and transport policy impacts.
IRU EU Director Raluca Marian said, “Europe counts approximately 35 million light commercial vehicles, many of which belong to SMEs.
“Even where certain operators may formally fall outside the direct scope of the proposal, the cascading effects throughout supply chains and subcontracting structures mean they will be directly or indirectly impacted. This makes sector-specific scrutiny indispensable.
“The initial provisional attribution of the file solely to the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety did not reflect the proposal’s deep operational consequences for transport businesses. The joint allocation now ensures that environmental ambition is assessed alongside transport expertise and real-world operational understanding.”
As IRU highlighted in its letter to the President of the European Parliament, decisions affecting fleet purchasing, depot investments, charging infrastructure deployment and business models require technical transport knowledge. The diversity of the sector demands careful evaluation of enabling conditions, infrastructure feasibility and SME realities.
“The basic fundamental condition for a good outcome is that the matter is dealt with where the expertise lies. The Clean Corporate Vehicles initiative is a proposal that would have deep implications for transport businesses. This cannot be done without the Committee on Transport and Tourism,” said Raluca Marian.
“We would like to express our gratitude to all opinion leaders within the Parliament who worked towards this outcome,” she added.
IRU stands ready to collaborate closely on this file and to provide the necessary data and sector expertise from the perspective of Europe’s road transport operators. We remain committed to constructive engagement to ensure that decarbonisation measures are effective, workable and aligned with the operational realities of the transport sector.