Certainty, predictability, and a few EU U-turns: at Connact, the recipes for the future of transport

Brussels – The future of European mobility must be sustainable, but not in the way that has been assumed so far. The industry is not questioning the need for and commitment to green, low-emission transport, and does not intend to turn away, but to be able to move forward, it is asking the European Commission to backtrack on initiatives that do not help, and, on the contrary, risk penalizing at a time when growth is needed, which passes through transport. “Highways have always played a fundamental role on the competitiveness front” and will continue to do so, emphasized Massimiliano Calamea, Head of EU & International Public Affairs at Autostrade per l’Italia, during the round table on The Evolution of EU transport policies, organized by Connact, the events platform that encourages dialogue between private players and institutions through meetings and networking.

“Today, 90 per cent of passengers and 84 per cent of goods travel by road, and 80 per cent of manufacturing workers are located less than 20 kilometres from a motorway toll booth,’ Calamea points out. ‘These figures will decrease marginally in the coming decades, but the sector will continue to play a fundamental role in economic competitiveness and is also taking on the role of enabler of decarbonisation and digitalisation.” Besides failing to please the European Parliament, the European Committee of the Regions, and the Council, the budget proposal also baffles the logistics world. “There are no resources to cover the costs of the enabling factors,” criticizes Maria Cristina Scarfia, Head of European Affairs at Confetra, who did the math, and the numbers do not seem to add up. “An electric truck today costs 400 thousand euros, twice as much as a diesel, and a 10 percent incentive of 40 thousand euros is an insult,” she argues. She then warns: “Less than two thousand trucks were registered in the EU in the first half of 2025, and the Commission would like it to be a hundred times that in ten years.” Translated, there is a risk of failure, and the reason is a difficult-to-implement strategy. As she explains, from an infrastructure perspective, recharging a truck at an ultra-fast charging station currently costs EUR 6,000 per hour. It means that “to recharge 30 trucks requires a 180 thousand euro bill, a space like the Piazza dei Miracoli in Pisa, is empty. Upgrading the network to avoid blackouts would cost between 50 and 100 billion euros, plus costs for companies.”

But it is the whole twelve-star approach that does not work, according to Confetra, which reproaches the von der Leyen Commission for “being deaf, imposing electric for all.” Following the Commission’s plan, “companies should reorganize their routes not according to company needs, but following the maps of the recharging stations,” when, for logistics, Scarfia points out, “continuity of service and predictability are essential elements for competitiveness.” Not to mention that “electric trucks weigh 2 tonnes more, which means pressure on bridges and viaducts and maintenance costs that states have not yet foreseen.” In short, “sustainable mobility is not a beige coat that fits everything. Cars and trucks are different things,” so when the Commission presents its strategy for company fleets, which seems to focus entirely on electric, the hope is that “Parliament will ask for exemptions for trucks or scrap” the measure. “Electric for all is not good enough; there are other solutions. We do not reject the transition, but we want it to be realistic and industrially sustainable.”  

Marco Mannocchi, Head of External Relations and Sustainability at IP Gruppo API, shares Confetra’s approach: “To move from a fossil fuel monopoly to an electricity monopoly by 2035 is not economically efficient.” Here, MEPs must “avoid pushing for an electricity monopoly and push the Commission to promote a demand policy” because, he emphasizes, “today we are betting on a demand that is not yet there.” The sector’s operators must be involved, especially given that “without the oil sector, the transition will not take place, because without the oil sector, no one produces hydrogen and no one installs recharging stations.” A change of course is therefore needed. “You can’t just do supply policy,” is the message to the EU executive.

Aimone di Savoia Aosta, senior vice president of Institutional and Regulatory Affairs at Pirelli, has similar demands. He points out that “Pirelli has always supported the Green Deal, and sustainability has always been our mission,” and so in that sense the company “welcomes the Clean Industrial Deal.” But in Brussels, it needs to be understood that “for any industrial group, it is important to have certainty over costs and investment,” whereas the work done so far has been seen as muddled, confusing, and of little use to businesses. “With the two regulations on the circular economy, we risk being considered by both, with the risk of overlap,” something that does not benefit Pirelli or the sector.

“Industry needs clarity“, cuts short Fabio Pressi, CEO of A2A E-mobility, who calls on the Commission, in fact, to open up on the use of biofuels, as the Italian government has repeatedly requested. “We need to understand what the energy mix of fuels will be,” and, in that sense, “we know that biofuels will serve and make an important contribution.” There is also the need to support the demand that still needs to be created today. Looking at the country, “today in Italy there are 67,561 recharging points, 1,159 of which are on motorways. Are they many or few? In relation to the 330,000 cars that are circulating, it is a lot,” says Pressi, who laments, however, that today investments in recharging infrastructures are “private,” with private individuals who “need a dialogue with politics to understand how to move towards change.”

Fabrizio Spada, head of Institutional Relations at the EU Parliament’s liaison office in Italy, tries to reassure: “Transport is at the heart of EU policies,” which therefore will not work against industry. Of course, the EU itself “has had to redefine its agenda, but always with the citizens in mind, as European elections put a lot of attention on environmental issues.”  Massimiliano Salini (FI/EPP) also had valuable words, reiterating that sustainability is not in question, but that it is necessary to work for “policies placed in the real world.” The MEP, a member of the Environment Committee, is convinced that for the future of EU transport policies, “we need to remove what would destroy it from the work done so far,” because “within the various regulations, there are contradictions.” Furthermore, “we must ensure that the mix of technological neutrality, also defined as ecological freedom and plurality, remains vibrant.”

For the future of EU mobility and transport policies, Carlo Ciccioli (FdI/ECR), a member of the European Parliament’s Transport Committee, looks at the immediate political landscape. “Politically, a change of governance is happening that will come between 2026 and 2027,” he says, referring to the outcomes of elections and government crises around Europe. “In the medium term, we need to revive a different project; we have to move beyond a political vision that is in decline.”

Stefano Paci, Head of the International Relations Unit of the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Transport (DG MOVE), recalls that the topic of transport “has to be seen as a whole, in a complex picture,” and in any case, “the topic of emissions is central to transport policy, and we are working to achieve the set targets, that of a 55 percent cut in emissions.” This does not detract from the fact that “some elements will have aspects that can be discussed and improved,” and he promises to engage in dialogue on this. “The issue of stakeholder consultations is fundamental, and we are pursuing it.”