UITP, EMTA & Polis Open Letter on the need to reflect clean bus ambitions across the EU financial instruments and programmes

UITP, EMTA and POLIS addressed an open letter to the European Institutions on the need to reflect clean bus ambitions across the EU financial instruments and programmes. The transition towards clean fleets in local and regional bus passenger transport is crucial to achieve energy efficiency, air pollution and noise reduction ambitions. To this end, appropriate EU funding and support is needed to make this transition a reality.

The Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) is an essential tool to finance public transport infrastructure and the deployment of clean vehicles through its Urban Nodes priority as well as via the CEF Blending Facility. The current negotiations on CEF2 seem excluding funding opportunities for clean vehicles purchase. This means that the EU will no longer hold any dedicated financing programme to support the clean bus deployment policy. If the current proposal to exclude vehicle procurement from CEF2 is maintained, the Commission should ensure that the renewal of bus fleets for the benefit of cities, regions and their transport authorities is clearly and substantially supported by other EU funding and financing programmes available.

Read the Open Letter