All news & events

Members of the European Parliament’s ENVI Committee held an exchange of views on 10 February about MEP Peter Liese’s draft report on the revision of the EU ETS. The Rapporteur reiterated that carbon must have a price in all parts of the economy to incentivise decarbonisation.

CLECAT, the European Express Association (EEA) and the European Shippers’ Council (ESC), representing European freight forwarders and logistics service providers, express delivery operators, and importers and exporters, embrace the concept of an EU ETS for road transport which provides a uniform EU carbon price and level-playing field to address the decarbonisation of road transport within the Single Market.

On 1 February, the European Parliament and the Council Presidency reached a political agreement on the reinforced mandate for Europol, the European Union's law enforcement cooperation agency.

On 3 February, the European Commission launched a call for evidence on the EU Toolbox against Counterfeiting, which will remain open for comments until 3 March. The establishment of the Toolbox was announced in the European Commission’s Intellectual Property Action Plan.

On 2 February, the UN published the 2021 Digital and Sustainable Trade Facilitation Global Report, which reviews the progress of trade facilitation reforms across 144 countries. The analysis concludes that countries across the globe have made progress on digitalizing international trade formalities during the COVID-19 pandemic, but stronger efforts are needed to facilitate trade for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and other groups and sectors with special needs.

Eurostat published this week a report which shows that the EU has met the 10% target level for 2020 for the share of renewable energy (including liquid biofuels, biomethane and ‘green’ electricity) used in transport. This target was included in Directive 2009/28/EC on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources (the so-called Renewable Energy Directive).

On 31 January, the European Commission opened an in-depth investigation to assess whether certain German support measures in favour of DB Cargo are in line with EU State aid rules. DB Cargo is a 100% subsidiary of the State-owned, vertically-integrated German rail operator Deutsche Bahn AG (‘DB AG').