Putting cycling high on the agenda of the European Commission, this was the main objective of the campaign for an EU Cycling Strategy. Initiated by ECF but supported by many stakeholders from civil society, cities, national authorities, businesses and academia, we together developed the EU Cycling Strategy. Recommendations for Delivering Green Growth and an Effective Mobility in 2030 document. This document represents the first holistic analysis of all EU policies related to cycling and a formulation of policy recommendation to the European, but also national and regional/local level on how to support cycling.

The EU Cycling Strategy was officially handed over to European Commissioner for Transport, Violeta Bulc, at the Velo-city conference in Arnhem-Nijmegen in June 2017. The key demand was: include the development of a genuine EU Cycling Strategy, i.e. developed and adopted by the European Commission, into its “Work Programme 2018 or subsequent initiatives”.

While the Commission has started with analysis of the recommendations we submitted, progress has been slow as we are still awaiting an official reply. However, having a Commission adopted EU Cycling Strategy was never an objective in itself but always a means to an end, i.e. in the form of legislative and non-legislative proposals by the Commission that take cycling fully into account as a fully-fledged transport mode. There is some early indication that our efforts in the European institutions are paying off: The proposed recast of the Railway Passenger Rights and Obligations Regulation acknowledges the increasing popularity for cycling across the Union and hence strengthened the article on bicycle carriage on trains; the Commission published a call for tender with the objective of developing minimum quality standards for bicycle infrastructure; and the Parliament’s own-initiative report on vehicle safety strongly recommends many of the active safety systems such as intervening Intelligence Speed Assistance that ECF has been calling for.

As for the many other policy recommendations formulated in the EU Cycling Strategy Recommendations document, ECF will start in 2018 with systematic monitoring as to its implementation. Continue to put pressure on the Commission to develop its very own EU Cycling Strategy is part of that. We thank all other stakeholders who have joined us in this call!