Boosting transport sector’s competitiveness in focus at meeting in Budapest

At the start of the meeting, Construction and Transportation Minister Janos Lazar warned that if Europe failed to improve its competitiveness, it would fall “significantly behind” America and China. He said the most important goal of Hungary’s presidency of the Council of the EU was to bolster competitiveness.

In addition to policy makers from EU member states, ministers and state secretaries from the Western Balkan countries, Moldova, Georgia, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Norway are participating at the meeting.

Matteo Salvini, the leader of Italy’s Lega Nord party and the current head of the infrastructure and transportation portfolio in the Italian government, is among those attending.

The future of the railway sector is another topic on the agenda in Budapest.

Opening the meeting, Lazar said the Draghi report had drawn the conclusion that Europe’s economic competitiveness was in need of a big boost. He added that the most important challenge of Hungary’s EU presidency was getting various sectors to contribute to a new competitiveness deal. Transportation is a condition for making industry, services and all other sectors competitive in Europe, he said.

As the host of the meeting, Lazar said it was important to debate competitiveness in connection with the green transition and decarbonisation, to weigh whether they strengthened or weakened each other, and to reach a consensus on a possible need to modify targets.

He said member states needed to consider the enormous cost of the green transition and ask whether they could finance those investments.

Addressing the topic of railways, he said he didn’t know of any country in which spending on public transport was sufficient. He added that investments in the transport sector were for the long term, and recouping them took time.

After the meeting, Lazar said energy and climate policy couldn’t be allowed to put the competitiveness of the European automotive industry at risk. He added that the automotive industry needed to apply new technologies, but that couldn’t be allowed to “kill the sector’s competitiveness”.

He said the European Commission needed to address the matter in a “smarter, more pragmatic and profit-oriented” manner. He added that it would be concerning if the EC was to go against industrialisation with its energy and climate measures.

Lazar pointed to Hungary’s high rate of industrialisation and the big share of the automotive industry within manufacturing and said Hungarians believed the sector to be the “heart and soul” of Europe, its most competitive branch of industry. He added that Europe’s automotive industry produced for many markets, drawing its profits from China and America, too.

Touching on the debate at the meeting on the impact of the green transition on transport and competitiveness, Lazar said transport needed to be restructured in the interest of cohesion, with financing not just for developments, but for operation, too. He added that north-south transport corridors needed to be strengthened, not only for defence reasons, but for trade.