Drawing lessons from the coronavirus outbreak, as well as the challenges the Union has been facing since the beginning of Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine, on 23 May 2022 the Commission adopted a Contingency Plan to strengthen the resilience of European transports, deeply impacted by both crisis. 

To contain the outbreak, indeed, a number of measures restricting international and domestic travel were taken such as, amongst the others, public transport and border closures. Furthermore, the war and sanctions have created many challenges for European transports, with truck drivers stuck in a conflict zone, the closure of Russian airspace, the destruction of Ukrainian transport infrastructure and the supply chains cut. Following the Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy, therefore, the Contingency Plan proposes a toolbox for dealing with any type of transport crisis, introducing guiding principles that ensure crisis response measures are proportionate, transparent, non-discriminatory and able to ensure that the Single Market continues to function as it should.  

More particularly, the Plan is structured around 10 measures which, ranging from a longer-term preparatory actions to tools that can be used in the short-medium period, aim at ensuring a better preparedness for a swift response to any accident or event capable of causing severe disruption to the Union transport system. Specifically, these actions consist in i) making EU transport laws fit for crisis situations, ii) ensuring adequate support for the transport sector, iii) ensuring free movement of goods, services and people, iv) managing refugee flows and repatriating stranded passengers and transport workers, v) ensuring minimum connectivity and passenger protection, vi) sharing transport information, vii) strengthening transport policy coordination, viii) strengthening cybersecurity, ix) testing transport contingency, and x) cooperating with international partners.

Marco Stillo