All news & events

Transport for London (TfL) will hold European Freight advice workshops for London 2012 in Paris, Lille and Holland, with the intention of ensuring freight and servicing companies are aware of the possibility of impacts to their operations and to help them understand how to plan for this to maintain as far as possible ‘business as usual’.

CLECAT regrets that the EU has not taken the views of the European business and industry into account in a time of economic difficulty and has not responded to the joint industry call to postpone the strict sulphur limits to allow investments in mass production of low sulphur fuel and development of cost-efficient abatement technologies.

The Association of European Freight Forwarders and Logistics, CLECAT, has alerted the European Commission on concerns expressed by its members on the recent announcement by Trenitalia implying a limitation of the free movement of dangerous goods vehicles in Italy. Trenitalia has introduced, with immediate effect, a restriction for ECM (Entity in Charge of Maintenance) in Italy: Railcars that contain hazardous goods now have to be managed by an ECM with a self-declaration of conformity rather than certification.

The Association of European Freight Forwarders and Logistics, CLECAT, is calling on the European Commission to reject a call from Nordic road freight operators to introduce a temporary six months opt-out of EU’s cabotage rules. The road associations from Sweden, Denmark and Finland have called on their Transport Ministers to seek support from the European Commission to change the cross-border movement of trucks from the Baltics and Eastern Europe into Scandinavia.

CLECAT, representing freight forwarders and logistic companies, the shippers (ESC) and the independent rail freight companies (ERFA) have written an open letter to Members of the European Parliament regarding their views, expectations and concerns over the European Commission’s proposal for a directive establishing a single European railway area (Recast) COM(2010)475.

Debating the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) instrument at an event hosted by MEP Filip De Backer last week, Mark Huybrechts, President of the European Freight Forwarders Organisation, CLECAT, said that this instrument published by the European Commission in October last year, represents a big leap forward in the transport policy field for many years. Together with the TEN-T guidelines they establish the framework for the building of one trans-European network, complementing national infrastructure policies and adding genuine European value to them.

Reliability, Capacity & Efficiency: Improving container supply chain performance in an era of volatility and change is the conference theme for 2012. More information on the event can be found here: http://www.tocevents-europe.com/CCAT/ A special rate has been agreed upon for CLECAT members. To receive the discount, please use this link for registration: http://www.tocevents-europe.com/CLECAT/

The International Transport Forum at the OECD is an international strategic think tank for the transport sector. Each year, it organises an “invitation only” Summit that brings together Ministers from the Forum’s 53 member countries, along with leading decision-makers and actors from the private sector, representatives of civil society and research. At the 2012 Summit, the International Federation of Freight Forwarders Associations (FIATA) and European Association for Forwarding, Transport, Logistic and Customs Services (CLECAT) are jointly organising a side event titled "E-Documents for Co-modal Transport of Goods", at which they hope you may be able to attend. The event is on 2 May from 10:00 to 13:30 and is part of the Summit’s programme. Further information on this event as well as details regarding Summit keynote speakers, plenary and expert sessions and their panellists may be found at the dedicated website: www.internationaltransportforum.org/2012. The programme for the FIATA/CLECAT event, which includes more information and the list of speakers, can be found here: CLECAT/FIATA side event on E-Documents for Co-modal Transport of Goods

Why DiSCwise? DiSCwise is a European pilot action that aims to improve the information exchange between stakeholders in the transport and logistics sector and to operationally assist them in building digital supply chains with a co-modal approach. It is a project with a strong SME focus.

The 11th edition of the Freight Forwarders’ Conference Thursday, 17th of November 2011       “FACILITATION and COMPLIANCE”   Logistics Service Providers facing compliance challenges and seeking facilitation       Following the successful conclusion of this year's Freight Forwarders' Conference, we have the pleasure to make available all the presentations that were given during the conference. A report on the conference will be available in due time. The following presentations were given during the event: Presentation by Mike Sturgeon, ECG Presentation by Denis Choumert, ESC Presentation by Nicolas Dbaisieux, EC, DG CLIMA Presentation by Graham Floater, Climate Aspect Presentation by Andreas Wilhelm, K+N Presentation by Volker Böhringer, Panalpina Presentation by Michael Lux, EC, DG TAXUD Presentation by Keith Vaughn, EEA Presentation by Libor Lochmann, CER         Vice-President Kallas delivers a speech at CLECAT's Freight Forwarders' Conference 2011. We wish you all a successful conclusion of 2011 and happy holidays, and we hope to see you again at our next events in 2012.