MEP Elena Kountoura speaks on electrification of vehicles with affordable costs

Europe: A socially fair “green transition” to electrification with affordable travel costs for citizens and professional groups in the transport sector, requested MEP Elena Kountoura in her intervention in the debate at the European Parliament Plenary on the upcoming European alternative fuel infrastructure regulation (AFIR).

“The required transport infrastructure projects must be supported with sufficient European and national funding,” according to MEP Kountoura.

He particularly emphasized the need to ensure the adequacy of the number of vehicle charging stations as a condition for the transition to electrification to succeed and to achieve the goals of the European Green Deal.

Access to electric vehicle charging stations should be sufficient in the urban fabric, on road networks and roads, in busy places such as supermarkets and shopping centres, and workplace parking areas. For the convenience of the professional sector of taxis, charging stations at the waiting and boarding points should be ensured.

Kountoura, the coordinator of LEFT in the TRAN Transport and Tourism Committee, participated as a shadow rapporteur in the formulation by the TRAN Committee of the ΑFIR report on the new European regulation, which will be put to the vote in the Plenary tomorrow.

The intervention of Elena Kountoura in the Plenary

“The Green Deal envisages a reduction of at least 90% of emissions by 2050 for the transport sector. The transition to electric mobility and sustainability has multiple benefits for the climate, the environment, and people’s health,” she stated.

As per MEP Kountoura, so an essential condition for this reduction, and for citizens to continue to move freely, is the installation of charging stations where they are needed in their daily lives: On public roads in business areas, supermarkets and shopping centres. It is also important that they have access to charging points and taxis where they are waiting for passengers.

Finally, she emphasized that for the green transition to succeed, it must be fair: Sufficient European and national funding for infrastructures and vehicles to have an affordable cost and, above all, not forget that the main pillar of the transition will they are the means of public transport for which, unfortunately, to this day they are not receiving the attention they deserve.