European Commission vice-president in charge for European green deal Frans Timmermans. (Photo by … [+]
“There will be no climate-neutral cities without boosting biking infrastructure,” warned European Commission’s vice-president Frans Timmermans on 9 March.
Speaking in Brussels at the Cycling Industries Europe Summit, Timmermans—the EU executive in charge of the European Green Deal—said the funding of cycling should be considered a EU-wide matter rather than for national and local politicians.
“All European finance instruments must be geared towards [the] goal of doubling the number of bike lanes,” he stressed. These include regional funds, the Social Climate Fund, and the Commission’s plan to have 100 climate-neutral cities across Europe.
“If we want to keep this planet in balance and if we want to address the energy crisis, we must continue to promote cycling across the whole of Europe,” he said.
European regional funds provided over $2 billion to build cycleways and footpaths across Europe in 2020, up from $700 million in the previous funding period.
In February, the European Parliament passed a resolution on developing an EU cycling strategy which has a 17-point plan to double the amount of cycling throughout Europe.
Cycling, says the plan, is “essential for achieving the EU’s climate and pollution reduction objectives and for delivering on its ambitions in the EU ‘Save Energy’ and REPowerEU initiatives.”
Later in the year, the Commission will propose a European Declaration on Cycling and will invite the European Parliament and Council to sign up for it.
This Declaration, said Timmermans, will be a “strategic compass” for European funding and policies going forward.
“In [the] Declaration, we will propose easy-to-understand principles to boost biking, and that will guide future action at EU level. We will flesh out how our concrete rules and funding instruments, both old and new, should deliver to put these principles into practice so that our citizens not only enjoy the right on paper to more cycling but also get the measures and tools to ensure that that right becomes a reality.”
