SUBTEXT Transport Lessons learnt and future challenges to

SUBTEXT Transport

Lessons learnt and future challenges to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic in the Adriatic Ionnian Region 28 January 2021 Alain Baron, DG MOVE B 2 Transport

How pandemic affects transport economy in Europe? • Sanitary crisis is turning to an economic one. • Transport is among the most affected sectors. • Traffic trends are rather similar in EU MS and Western Balkans : - Sharp decrease in long distance air and rail transport; - Reduction of internal demand only marginally affected freight transport. • Both EU MS and WB have been (and still are) affected by traffic restrictions • Transport companies facing severe financing problems. Transport

Learning from COVID-19 Crisis (1) • Learning from COVID-19 Crisis is essential. • Beyond the drop of the passenger transport demand, the pandemic mainly highlighted the weaknesses of the AI transport system: - Relies too much on road transport; - Border-crossings suffer from lack of coordination between EU MS and non EU-ones; - Cross-border infrastructure is sub-optimal • “Green lanes” are only a temporary solution. The improvement of EU-WB connectivity should remain the main objective. Transport

Learning from COVID-19 Crisis (2) “Errare humanum est, perseverare autem diabolicum” • COVID-19 pandemic affects the transport demand the transport offer. • It forced us to react with short term / urgent solutions; • It should also lead to review our transport infrastructure plans and in particular our short term investment priorities. • More focus on efficiency / less on volumes. • It should – above all – push AI to speed up the transformation of its transport system. Transport

Future challenges • The European Green Deal calls for a 90% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from transport by 2050, to help the EU become the first climate neutral continent. • To this end, the Commission adopted in December 2020 a Strategy for Sustainable and Smart Mobility. • As transport was amongst the sectors hardest hit by the COVID pandemic, we need to improve our European transport system so that it can quickly recover from the severe impact of this crisis. • We need to set out much needed reforms, policies and actions to support the sector. Transport

Will transport of tomorrow be the same of transport of yesterday? Our goal is to put European transport on track for the future Our vision for the future of European transport and mobility is to make it more sustainable, smart and resilient through 10 flagship areas with key milestones and an action plan with a list of concrete policy actions. Post COVID-19 transport will deeply differ from the transport of yesterday! The EU vision of transport is also for AI partners and in particular to candidate countries. Transport

What role for EUSAIR? . Help to promote the solutions of the future, not the projects of the past; • Ensure the connection and complementarity between the large scale projects or actions and the regional initiatives; • Monitor the potential needs / gaps at regional level in order to support the development of common solutions; • Focus on smart and innovative transport solutions at the service of citizens and business; Transport

Thank You! https: //ec. europa. eu/transport/ themes/mobilitystrategy_en Transport