Urban Mobility: What Role for the European Union? Explaining Dynamics of European Union Policy Design Since 1995

Abstract

This research briefing provides a timely assessment of European Union (EU) intervention in the urban mobility policy field, by examining the relationship between forms of policy design and the EU institutionalization process. More precisely, it questions whether or not this continued intervention has benefited EU institutions. In order to do so, it analyses evolving relationships between three dimensions of EU policy design—namely policy objectives, policy structures and policy instruments—in a long-term perspective. Drawing on an original dataset, the article shows that in the absence of a stabilized understanding of the issue at stake, the lack of dedicated financial and organizational resources, and the import of policy instruments from other policy domains, the institutionalization of urban mobility at EU level is incomplete. These findings contribute to current debates on the Europeanization of cities and urban policies.

Notes

1. There is no consistency over time in the labelling of this area of intervention, as discussed in the second section of the paper. However, we kept the term “urban mobility” since it was regularly used by EU institutions and policy-makers in recent policy documents and discourses.

2. See, for example, the DG Move website, theme “clean transport, urban transport”: http://ec.europa.eu/transport/themes/urban/index_en.htm.

3. Lisbon Treaty, Title VII.

4. Notwithstanding their wish to systematically explore EU policy-making across a vast range of policy domains, books and manuals rarely refer to European transport policies (see, for example, Wallace et al., 2010). Dühr et al. (2010, pp. 295–309) pay little attention to urban mobility in their chapter on EU transport policy.

5. Since this is still a research under construction, this first series of exploratory interviews should be completed in the near future by a more extensive series of semi-structured interviews with experts participating in the European policy process, including administrative officials from EU Commission, members of the European Parliament from the relevant Committees, and members of transnational interest groups active at the European level in the field of urban mobility.

6. See, for example, the DG Move website, theme “clean transport, urban transport”: http://ec.europa.eu/transport/themes/urban/index_en.htm.

7. Regulation (EC) No. 1370/2007 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2007 on public passenger transport services by rail and by road and repealing Council Regulations (EEC) No. 1191/69 and 1107/70.

8. Concerning the methodological issues I faced in operationalizing this typology, see Halpern and Le Galès (2011).

9. See, for example, the EUROFORUM Consortium, which is led by the International Association of Public Transport.

10. CIVITAS 1 (2002–2006, 19 cities), CIVITAS 2 (2005–2009, 17 cities) and CIVITAS Plus (2008–2012). See the programme's website: http://www.civitas-initiative.org/main.phtml?lan=en.