The International Road Transport Union (IRU) believes that the new Proposal on combined transport presented on Tuesday by the The European Commission not only does not promote this method of handling of goods, but rather damages it ( of 7 November 2023). According to the Commission's intentions, the The aim of the proposal is to focus on support for Combined transport operations defined as that reduce externalities by at least 40% compared to road-only transport operations. The IRU points out that the EU Commission "has not provided any clarification of what will be considered an external cost and how it will be calculated. In addition, Member States will have to develop policies that make transport combined and multimodal efficiency and reduce costs by at least 10% within seven years'.

"We appreciate it," explained Raluca Marian, EU Director IRU Advocacy - the Commission's efforts to address finally the rules on combined transport, but let us consider the proposed as a missed opportunity to establish a framework for Simple and transparent incentives for freight transport users combined and intermodal. The IRU is not convinced that incentives for combined transport with performance in terms of external costs of road freight transport operations and the right approach. It could slow down the reduction of the footprint of road freight transport'.

In particular, the IRU criticises the fact that the Commission to leave the establishment of a system for calculating the external costs to an implementing act and that the proposal includes only a vague reference to the "IMPACT" manual on costs external transport sector of the European Commission, while The initiative is not fully taken into account "CountEmissions EU" for the calculation of EU emissions. transport of the Commission.

In addition, noting that another condition laid down for the Benefiting from the incentives is the mandatory use of the system Electronic Freight Information (eFTI), which is defined by EU Regulation no. 1056 of 2020, the IRU underlines that the effective implementation of the eFTI has only been initiated at at EU level and that, if there are no further delays, The full application of the standard is envisaged only for the mid-2026. The International Association Road Transport Sector therefore considers that 'the compulsory use of eFTI should not become an obstacle to incentives for the combined transport'.

"The additional complexity and legal uncertainty - Marian observed - may not persuade the hauliers to make greater use of combined transport and intermodal and, therefore, the proposal may not achieve the the goal of decarbonising freight transport and logistics. In real situations, he stressed, it's all about efficiency and cooperation and complementarity between the modality. This, Marian concluded, is what that legislators should keep in mind when setting the rules, instead of contrasting different modalities and establish artificial hierarchies between different modalities disconnected from everyday reality. A cooperation between the different modalities and, in order to enable it, we need an EU-wide framework for a modern legal system'.