The Commission presents a staff working document on the implementation of the initiatives under the 2011 White Paper on Transport, five years after publication. To recall, the White Paper strategy is characterised by four broad areas of intervention: internal market, innovation, infrastructure, international aspects. For each of these areas, a ten-year programme was defined with 40 specific action points, containing within each point a handful of specific initiatives of different nature, different time horizon and different economic/political relevance.
The document recalls the European Parliament’s resolution of 2015, taking stock of the 2011 White Paper and making recommendations on sustainable mobility.
It examines developments and initiatives in each mode of transport, and looks at initiatives on social issues and security, as well as on innovation, infrastructure, and recent trends and developments in the transport sector.
Main achievements: the Commission states that it has made a significant progress in the five years since the adoption of the White Paper programme, having issued proposals in most of the 40 action points of the programme. Looking at the total of 132 initiatives announced in the White Paper, 68 initiatives can be considered as completed by the Commission (e.g. by making a legislative proposal). Moreover, several action points of the programme have been further developed under various Commission strategies supporting the ten priority areas of the current Commission, notably the Energy Union and the Digital Single Market.
However, stakeholders’ feedback to the Commission showed that most were not satisfied with the progress achieved so far. This negative assessment referred to the slow follow-up to Commission initiatives, and the view that the legislator adopted acts that were less ambitious than Commission proposals. Stakeholders strongly expected that the challenges should be addressed more through:
· a better focus on implementation of the White Paper;
· increased and well-justified investments in transport infrastructure,
· a stronger Single European Transport Area;
· more account of technological developments, and
· better consideration of the needs of transport users and workers.
Social aspects, digitalisation and automation were other important aspects that required more recognition in the transport policy agenda. Additional efforts were also called for to improve road safety and to safeguard the competitiveness of European transport operators vis-à-vis international competitors.