The EU Green Transport Package: Two steps forward, one step back
Author: Łukasz Kuś | Translated from Polish
04.12.2025 | EU member states have adopted a common position on the Vehicle Dimensions and Weights Directive, which allows so-called gigaliners on European roads. However, the continuation of work on the new Combined Transport Directive remains uncertain. Industry organizations and political parties in the European Parliament are calling for continued work on this amendment.
On December 4th of this year, the EU Council adopted a common position on the new directive on road combinations. The legislative proposal allows the use of the European Modular System (EMS) for cross-border transport within the EU. For electric vehicles, a higher vehicle weight and length limit is permitted. For vehicles engaged in intermodal transport, vehicles exceeding the maximum weight specified in the directive will be permitted for cross-border operations.
Following the adoption of a common position in the EU Council, negotiations with the European Parliament on the final form of this directive will begin. The proposal to allow gigaliners on European roads has met with mixed reactions. On the one hand, the ecological and economic benefits of this solution are highlighted – longer vehicles have lower fuel consumption and emissions per tonne-kilometer than traditional road trains. On the other hand, some representatives of the rail sector fear that the introduction of longer trucks could trigger a negative modal shift from rail to road.
In further work on the Vehicle Weights and Dimensions Directive, ensuring the compatibility of road vehicles with intermodal transport appears crucial. "Allowing cross-border movement of longer and heavier trucks risks undermining efforts to build interoperable multimodal supply chains based on a robust combined transport ecosystem, as a significant number of intermodal terminals and freight wagons will be unable to handle EMS vehicles," the International Union of Combined Road-Rail Carriage wrote in a commentary.
Next works
The Weights and Dimensions Directive is part of the Green Transport package, which concluded negotiations on the Capacity Management Directive at the end of November 2019. The joint position of the European Parliament and the Council, while not meeting all industry expectations, does contain some legislative proposals that could improve the situation for international rail freight transport.
The details of the agreement are not yet known, but several elements of the regulation could bring some progress: penalties calculated at a fixed rate per kilometre, additional restrictions on infrastructure managers' ability to deviate from the deadlines for temporary capacity restrictions compared to the previous version of the text, the introduction of new capacity rights across multiple networks, and socio-economic criteria in the event of capacity conflicts, the European Association of Freight Railways said in a statement.
What's next for the directive?
The most challenging legislative process was the highly anticipated amendment to the Combined Transport Directive. In October of this year, the European Commission even suggested that difficulties in reaching a common position between the EU Council and the European Parliament might even lead to the withdrawal of further work on this legislation, a move criticized by industry organizations.
During the work of the European Parliament's Transport Committee, which took place on December 1 and 2 of this year, representatives of the largest political groups expressed support for continuing work on the new intermodal directive. During the meeting, the results of a study commissioned by the Transport Committee were presented, among other things, demonstrating the environmental benefits of developing combined transport and identifying barriers to the development of intermodal in Europe. The UIRR appealed to MEPs to pressure the European Commission not to withdraw the amendment to the Combined Transport Directive from its agenda.