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Pope Francis meets with refugees on the Greek island of Lesbos during a visit on Saturday

Which European country has received the most asylum seekers on a per capita basis so far this year? Germany? No. Sweden? No. Hungary? No. After this weekend, it is actually the Vatican. Aided by a low official population of 450, the Vatican shot to the top of the leaderboard when it comes to housing refugees after Pope Francis returned from his trip to Lesbos with 12 Syrians in tow.

The gesture was token and humanitarian rather than political — or so the Vatican’s spinners insisted. But it provided an ugly juxtaposition for German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who spent the weekend fending off criticism at home after giving the go ahead for a criminal investigation into a comedian who made jokes at the expense of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

The footage of a pope embracing asylum seekers who fled war only to face months of detention in Greece and then a legally questionable return across the Aegean provided the grimmest reminder yet of the moral price that the EU has paid for the Merkel-led deal with Turkey.

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The EU stands united with the people and Government of Belgium and expresses solidarity on the 22 March Brussels attacks.

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If you ever find yourself in a room filled with people working on European transport policy, the moment you mention “decarbonisation” heads will turn in curiosity (or despair). We bet this is what happened during the two-day informal council meeting in Amsterdam over the past two days!

Since the 2030 Climate and Energy Package and COP21, everyone has been talking about “decarbonisation of transport” yet no one really knows what the Commission has in its mind in order to solve this complex puzzle. Any action to reduce CO2 emissions from transport could impact everyone, from public transport users to freight operators.

Last week, the Commission shed some light on the strategy with the publication of its long-awaited Roadmap on decarbonising the transport sector. As expected the initiative (which is due to be agreed upon in College at the end of June) will not include legislation, but will provide the framework for a number of other initiatives that advance the transition towards carbon-free or less carbon intensive fuels, improving vehicle efficiency, and managing transport demand.  

The publication of the roadmap was preceded by rumors that the Commission was focusing on electrification, especially considering the long and complex discussions on the sustainability of biofuels and the rather weak agreement in favor of alternative fuels a couple of years ago. While the roadmap does not necessarily reflect this strong push on electrification, a study on third countries policies by the Joint Research Centre discusses in depth the many options including electrification.

Realistically, the approach showed in the roadmap is the most promising one to achieve results as it focuses on the idea that reducing emissions from transport requires coordinated action on several fronts:

• CO2 emissions from cars and vans
• Monitoring emissions from heavy duty vehicles
• Action plan for the deployment of electrification and advanced biofuels
• Revision of the Eurovignette Directive and electronic tolling
• Decision on Effort Sharing for non-ETS sectors
• Initiatives on intelligent transport
• Urban mobility initiatives
• Rules for market access for the haulage market

Daunting list, right?! Whether you are a vehicle manufacturer or provide components for vehicles, or even if you work in the electricity generation sector or are a fuel supplier, we would recommend that you:

• Look out – many initiatives will be coming your way in the next months and the time to engage is now
• Brush up your stats – whilst the Commission will not be conducting a public consultation on the Communication, some of its element will require engagement from stakeholders, with concrete data on business impacts preferred.
• Meet with key decision makers – technology neutrality is still the rule, so if you expect to see something specific about your sector this is not going to happen. If you want to stick out, act now.

Ilektra Tsakalidou, Laura Rozzo, and Michael Stanton-Geddes

On 21 April, SEDE will hold a public hearing to address the cyber defence and resilience from the CSDP perspective at the EU level and national levels. How to build the resilience and efficiently protect critical infrastructures? Which are the cyber warfare capabilities in our changing world? Given that cyber security stays high on the European agendas and is one of the Presidency priorities, it will be extremely interesting to gather different experts and hear which their insights are.
Location : Paul-Henri Spaak 5B001
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Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP