Four leading European associations representing the road transport, freight forwarding, shippers, and cold-chain sector have jointly called on the President of the European Commission to avoid introducing mandatory zero-emission truck demand targets, warning that such measures risk disrupting Europe’s green transition if enabling conditions are not yet in place.
In a joint letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, the signatories, IRU, CLECAT, the European Shippers’ Council (ESC) and the Global Cold Chain Alliance (GCCA), reaffirmed their strong commitment to transport decarbonisation but cautioned that demand-side mandates would slow market-driven progress and create unnecessary pressure on operators and shippers.
ESC Secretary General Godfried Smit said, “Reduction of the carbon footprint is still a very important objective for cargo owners. The reduction of emissions will be marginal for own account transport operators using their vehicles for a low number of kilometres. In this way obliging own account transport operators using zero-emission trucks can be seen as using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.”
Zero-emission truck registrations in the EU rose in early 2025, even as overall heavy-duty vehicle sales declined, showing that the sector is moving forward where conditions allow. However, charging networks, grid capacity, and vehicle affordability remain major barriers to scaling up.
The signatories warn that binding purchase or use targets would place disproportionate burdens on SMEs and micro-enterprises, which make up over 95% of Europe’s 600,000 road transport operators, cascading compliance costs through subcontracting chains and impacting smaller companies least able to absorb them.
They also note that several transport segments, such as cold-chain logistics, construction, and chemical transport, face specific technical and operational barriers to electrification, making a one-size-fits-all mandate both impractical and economically damaging.
Instead, the signatories call for:
• targeted purchase incentives to make zero-emission trucks more affordable;
• accelerated investment in both depot and public charging infrastructure; and
• a coherent financing framework that reinvests revenues from instruments such as the Eurovignette and ETS 2 directly into road-transport decarbonisation.