Newsletters

FreightWaves reported on Tuesday 15 June that members of the US House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee are drafting a bipartisan legislation that would require ocean carriers to accept all US export container bookings. The legislation, to be proposed by John Garamendi and Dusty Johnson is in response to mounting complaints by US agricultural shippers that unscrupulous business practices by foreign container ship operators are causing them to lose money and market share overseas.

On 15 June, CLECAT participated in an online roundtable event hosted by MEPs Vera Tax (S&D, NL) and Jutta Paulus (Greens/EFA, DE) to debate the impact of mega-vessels on the maritime supply chain. This followed the grounding of the mega vessel ‘Ever Given’ in the Suez Canal at the end of March this year, which has led to long waiting times, further port congestion and delays.

The European Logistics Platform is organising an event entitled “ReFuel EU Aviation: a game-changing EU sustainable aviation fuel plan?” on 29 June from 15.30-17.00h.

CLECAT is pleased to announce that it has been welcomed as a new member of the European Clean Trucking Alliance, a group of over 20 companies and organisations from across Europe calling for zero-emission road freight. In doing so the association of European freight forwarders and logistics service providers underlines its support for the rapid development of a uniform European legal framework for the complete decarbonisation of road freight transport by 2050.

CLECAT welcomed earlier this week in a press release the political informal agreement on the Eurovignette Directive reached on 16 June between negotiators from the European Parliament and the Council of the EU. The deal on new road charging rules supports the transition from time-based to distance-based charging, reducing CO2 emissions.

On 7 June, a new Administrative Cooperation Arrangement was signed between the Secretary General of the World Customs Organization (WCO), Dr Kunio Mikuriya, and the Director-General of the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF), Ville Itälä, to strengthen the collaboration between the two bodies.

From 1 July 2021, the new VAT e-commerce package will come into force. The VAT rules on cross-border business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce will change, alongside the customs formalities and processes for importation and exportation of low value consignments.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) released April 2021 data for global air cargo markets showing that global air cargo demand continued to outperform pre-COVID levels, with demand up 12% compared to April 2019 and 7.8% compared to March 2021.

On 10 June, the European Commission approved a €150 million Italian scheme to support both the rail freight sector and the rail commercial passenger sector in the context of the coronavirus outbreak.