Taxing Transport for Green and Inclusive Mobility

With the European Green Deal the EU seeks to become the first climate-neutral continent by 2050. Together with already binding and ambitious 2030 emission reduction targets under the EU Effort Sharing Regulation, the Green Deal exerts significant pressure on EU Member States to strengthen climate policies in all sectors of the economy. The transport sector – so far, the decarbonization bottleneck in the EU – must play a central role in coming policy reforms. Policy observers across the whole range of the political spectrum advocate strengthening the role of tax measures in the policy mix that currently favors command-and-control regulation. Yet, a lack of public support challenges thorough tax reforms, partly because distributional consequences have for too long been disregarded by advocates of tax policies.  

The GREEN & INCLUSIVE MOBILITY PROJECT will provide challenges:

1. comprehensive evaluations of innovative national policies in selected EU Member States with due consideration of supporting the electric vehicle revolution;
2. an in-depth analysis of distributional consequences, including guidance on complementary measures to reduce adverse effects for vulnerable groups;
3. clear communication embedding our generated evidence in a complementary synthesis of the dispersed knowledge available in the scientific literature to enable cross-country learning about policy solutions;
4. contributions to an informed public policy debate by setting up timely, policy-relevant and high-level policy events and dialogue forums.

Launched in June 2020 in collaboration with the Sustainability Council of the Volkswagen Group, the project combines the rigor of the scientific approach with the insights of industry partners and government bodies. It follows on from the previous project “Next Generation Policy”.