All news & events

On 22 November, the European Parliament gave its final approval to the Directive on the resilience of critical entities (CER Directive), containing rules on improving the protection of the EU’s essential infrastructure. The new rules will harmonise the definition of critical infrastructure, to improve consistency between the Member States. The new legislation is consistent with the recently-adopted NIS2 directive on cybersecurity.

Deutsche Bahn (DB) has named the railway corridors Hamburg-Berlin and Emmerich-Oberhausen as the two sites where it will carry out major improvement works from late 2024 onwards. The overhaul is part of DB’s ongoing project to renovate Germany’s high-intensity railways, meaning the lines with the highest passenger numbers and freight volumes.

Ukrainian Railways plans to open six additional border crossings for rail freight to Europe. Three facilities will be added on the border with Poland, two on the border with Romania and one on the border with Moldova, with some of the border points potentially being operative within three months.

CLECAT has published its position on the revision of the EU Slots Regulation, which sets out rules to ensure that, where airport capacity is scarce, available landing and take-off slots are used efficiently and distributed in a fair, non-discriminatory and transparent way. Recognising the importance of an appropriate slot allocation mechanism, as well as the drastic changes brought by the COVID-19 crisis, CLECAT considers Commission’s initiative to review the EU Slots Regulation is now timely and urgent, as the current framework for the allocation of slots at EU airports, dating back to 1993, is inadequate to address the continuously increasing congestion at EU Airports and does not effectively address the needs of the air cargo sector.

As negotiations on the inclusion of shipping in the EU ETS enter the final stretch, CLECAT, together with European shipowners, ports and port operators, the cruise and ferry sector, shipyards and equipment manufacturers, fuel suppliers and shippers reiterate their call to regulators to earmark ETS revenues from shipping back to the maritime sector.

On 5 December, EU Transport Ministers will come to Brussels to attend the Transport, Telecommunications and Energy Council meeting which will seek to conclude under the leadership of the Czech Presidency to conclude legislative proceedings on some EU-related transport files.

The European Logistics Platform (ELP) is organising a breakfast event entitled “The new EU Urban Mobility Framework: what implications for freight transport and logistics?” which will take place on 9 December at the Renaissance Hotel (Brussels) from 8:00 to 9:30 CET.

This week, the CLECAT Board, General Assembly and several of its institutes met in Brussels to discuss and plan strategies for 2023, addressing priories but also ongoing logistics and supply chain issues.

The European Freight Forwarders Association (CLECAT), the European Shippers’ Council (ESC) and the European Logistics Association (ELA) welcomed around 150 participants, keynote speakers, and panellists at the Logistics for Europe event on 23rd November, organised jointly to debate the challenges of European logistics and the need for enhanced collaboration between parties in the European and global supply chains.