Debate: Developing an EU cycling strategy
Date: THURSDAY, 16 FEBRUARY 2023
Speaker: Janez Lenarčič
Language: EN

The Commission fully agrees that cycling presents a huge potential for climate change mitigation, offering an alternative to motorised trips, in particular in cities. It can alleviate the congestion and air quality problems in urban areas, while at the same time bringing about health benefits associated with more active lifestyles and remaining an affordable mode of transport. Cycling also represents a key European industry, with an important growth potential. Today, e-bikes sold in Europe are mainly built in Europe. We need to ensure that this continues while considering the whole value chain, including components.  Importantly, it contributes to the ongoing co-creation process of the mobility transition pathway. In general, bicycle use has been on the rise in many EU cities over recent years, and the Commission would like this momentum to continue.  There are initiatives to boost cycling. The sustainable and smart mobility strategy provides for a significant increase in the length of cycling infrastructure and for the more effective inclusion of cycling as one of the TEN-T last-mile solutions. Cycling also has an important place in the new EU urban mobility framework of 2021. Its role and potential is also well reflected in many other initiatives such as EU Save Energy of the REPowerEU initiative. Moreover, we all know that cycling has a visible place in the awareness raising campaign of the European Mobility Week.  All these show that the Commission fully recognises the crucial importance of cycling in our transport system. I’m sure that we can also count on the recently established Commission expert group on urban mobility that gathers Member States, local and regional authorities, as well as urban mobility stakeholders to deliver recommendations on the best practices and possible actions to encourage active mobility.  As for taking cycling into due account when building or upgrading the TEN-T infrastructure, let me underline that the TEN-T Regulation can and should have a recommendation to include cycling infrastructure where possible. This is what the Commission proposed.  To improve the energy performance of public buildings, the Commission also proposed the minimum availability of charging and parking places for electric bikes.  This Parliament’s resolution would give important political backing to these proposals.  Finally and importantly, the proposed requirements in the revised TEN-T Regulation regarding the adoption of sustainable urban mobility plans by the major cities should result in the accelerated growth of cycling share across the European Union because that is where the action to promote cycling will start and is already underway in our cities and regions.  However, among cyclists there is a worrying upward trend in road deaths. While the overall number of deaths fell by 23 % between 2010 and 2019, the number of cyclists killed actually increased in that period by 3 %. While one can point to an increase in the number of people cycling, safety is a fundamental issue to be tackled.  People will not get on their bikes unless they feel safe to do so. Building safe cycling infrastructure is therefore part of the answer but we need to do more. We can and should promote safe cycling better through a variety of channels such as the European Road Safety Charter and the EU Road Safety Exchange Programme, whereby Member States with less experience in developing safe cycling infrastructure are paired with countries that are in the forefront. We also reward the best initiatives to educate and inform the public on cycling safety through our annual EU road safety awards.  We agree that the enforcement of relevant traffic rules is a vital element in keeping cyclists safe. While this is very much a Member State competence, we work with enforcement authorities and with police forces to foster mutual learning.  Regarding the guidance and quality requirements for high-quality and safe cycling infrastructure, provided for under the Road Infrastructure Safety Directive, we will launch a further study into this important method later this year, and we will establish a dedicated subgroup of the expert group on road infrastructure safety management to help us with this task.  In conclusion, let me thank you for your continued efforts to make cycling in the European Union more popular. The Commission stands with you in that mission.