European Parliament election: impact analysis, inflation & driver shortages disrupting supply chains

In my almost 20 years in the industry, we have had to deal with driver shortages, but the current geopolitical situation has made it even more difficult.

by Kim Brandt, Vice president, Haulier procurement at DSV.

The industry's ability to adapt to market demand and maintain efficient response times is affected by the continual driver shortages. Additionally, because drivers are often recruited from abroad, the recruitment process is longer and involves administration beyond the industry's control. This challenge has been further intensified by the situation in Ukraine, where recent legislative initiatives aim to increase the number of soldiers in the army.

Together, these factors contribute to an uncertain capacity outlook for the months ahead of us, presenting significant challenges across the industry. 

At DSV, we navigate these challenges by proactively adapting to shifts in the industry landscape. Our priority is providing continuous support to hauliers while ensuring uninterrupted service delivery for our customers.

Increased tariffs on Chinese EVs: The EU and US are increasing tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles (EVs) to counteract Chinese subsidies and to protect domestic industries. Since most EVs or their parts are produced in China, this could raise BEV prices and disrupt the Chinese producer's current market share.
^{More info: europa.eu, whitehouse.gov}

German MAUT

1st Jul 2024: Starting 1 July 2024, vehicles with a maximum laden mass over 3.5 tonnes will require a toll if they are used for road haulage.
^{More info: toll-collect.de}

Note: Road taxes of similar imposed by governments impacts the total transportation cost, beyond the control of DSV.

The votes have been cast and the results are in. For the next five years the European Parliament will have a more strengthened right wing of groups, but “the big three” (EPP, S&D and Renew Europe) still hold more than 50 percent of the seats. This could mean a change in the dynamics, but not a dismantling of previous legislation altogether. 

The run-up to this year´s European Parliament elections has been all about the potential right swing of the European Parliament leaving the two right wing groups, ECR (European Conservatives and Reformists) and ID (Identity and Democracy) with the majority of the seats. This scenario would have had a huge impact on European politics and on the green transition.

Now that the results are in, it is looking a bit more like business as usual. The three big groups consisting of conservatives, social democrats and socialists and liberals, went from 417 seats out of the 705 in 2019, to 399 out of 720. The majority shrank a bit from 59 percent to a little more than 55 percent.

Even though the right doesn´t hold a majority in the European Parliament they still have a momentum. Especially in some of the big and decisive member states like France, Germany and Italy. This means that we will most likely see a European Parliament that takes its foot off the pedal a little bit in the coming mandate compared to the last one thereby trying to bridge the gap and compromise with the right-wing groups, to not lose voters.

The legislative proposals that are currently in process through the legislative system as well as new legislative proposals from the Commission will not de-facto be up and running until both the Commission and the European Parliament are at full speed again in the beginning of 2025.

However, legislative proposals that have been passed already, such as the Green Deal and the initiatives under Fit for 55, have now entered into an implementation phase. So here we don´t foresee much change.