At Fleet Cards Europe, we’re committed to advocating for policies that best support the needs of our industry. Over the past quarter, we’ve been working closely with policy makers and other stakeholders across a range of subjects, to ensure that our members’ voices are heard on the issues that matter most to them. This includes promoting innovative sustainability in transportation, working with the EU’s VAT Committee and engaging on the PSD2 review.

In this article, we look back at the last three months and highlight some of our recent achievements:

Sustainability 

• FCE’s Sustainability Working Group made significant progress in our work on sustainability-related topics. We are proud to announce that FCE has now joined the European Commission’s expert group Sustainable Transport Forum which will allow us to be at the forefront of EU discussions and continue to support the European road transportation sector in its transition towards carbon neutrality.
• Aside from this our working group has been continuously engaging with the European institutions; we recently published a position paper on the revision of the CO2 emission standards for Heavy-Duty Vehicles and have engaged on the in-vehicle generate data initiative and the Alternative Fuels Infrastructure regulation.

Payments

• The Payment Working Group’s focus in the first quarter was on the ongoing EU Commission review of the Payment Services Directive II (PSD2)  specifically with regard to the limited network exclusion under Article 3 (“Exclusions”) and the need for a harmonised approach regarding exemption notification requirements across member states, which was also highlighted by the EBA (EBA/Op/2022/06, Article 61).  The European Commission, in collaboration with VVA and CEPS, recently published a study on the application and impact of PSD2, which we responded to in a  position paper. We will continue to engage with the Commission on the issue of PSD2 in the coming months.

VAT

• The main focus of the VAT Working Group since the start of the year has been ongoing engagement with the European Commission and Member States with regard to the Vega Case (C-235-18 Vega International) on which the working group was also very active last year. Specifically, through a recently created group of experts resulting from the last VAT Committee, FCE developed a position paper on the issue, which the European Commission acknowledged as a good basis for its interaction with the Member States.
• In parallel, we worked on a position paper with regard to the European Commission’s proposal on the review of the tax rules.

Fuel Price/Sanctions

• Our Task Force, set up last year to deal with the rise in fuel prices and sanctions, has been focused on fuel price measures taken by Member States in response to high energy prices, setting out industry positions and engaging with several Member States on best practice for fuel price measures.

As you can see, we’ve been hard at work in the past few months and have made significant contributions at an EU-level in advancing the issues which affect our industry and our members, and we’re excited to continue our work in the year ahead. 

If you’d like to stay up-to-date on our journey and our ongoing efforts, be sure to follow us on LinkedIn for information on our latest activities. 

If you’re interested in joining FCE in this important work, please get in touch with us, via our contact form or email us directly – we’d love to hear from you.