The 2024 edition of the CIE Summit was a great success! Keeping in mind the EU Declaration on Cycling’s call for the ‘development of a world class cycling industry’, policymakers, industry leaders, and cycling experts gave an audience of over 200 attendees a blueprint for cycling industry policies and acclaimed the Benelux Union’s offer to be the ‘living laboratory’ for cycling industry stimulation policies of the future.
We'd like to thank all attendees, high-quality speakers, panelists, and our summit partner organization, the Benelux Union. You all inspired everyone to work together for the future of the cycling industry!
Want to catch up on what you missed? Here’s everything you need to know from the CIE 2024 Summit.
Look at the CIE 2024 Summit pictures here
Cycling industries are now an established part of the policy story.
Speaker after speaker reinforced the message that cycling businesses have arrived in EU policy, with CIE’s key messages reflected back to the audience by key decision-makers.
When we started CIE in 2018 one of our main objectives was to get the cycling business sector more widely recognised by policy-makers at all levels of the EU. We were so conscious that other sectors such as automotive made their job creation and investment the main reason for policy support, but we struggled to get our whole ecosystem recognised in the same way. From the CIE Summit 2024 it is clear that this has completely changed.
“I discovered that the cycling industry is a job creation mode. Cycling industries have been a valuable partner in the Mobility Transition Pathway and we’ve seen an incredible response from the cycling industry”
“The EU cycling industry represents more than 1 million jobs, many of these local jobs. The EU is a world leader in bike sharing. This entire ecosystem, especially the local jobs and SMEs is crucial for our economy.”
Not our words, but those of the Director-General of one of the EU’s most influential directorates (Kerstin Jorna, DG Grow) and of the head of transport networks and sustainable transport (Eddy Liegeois, DG Move), whose departments will be the key actors for the industry in the coming EU political cycle.
This change was also driving the announcement of a Benelux Union initiative for cycling industries. The 2020 Benelux Bike Declaration was an important milestone in getting the EU to agree to a Cycling Declaration for all countries. However, the later EU Declaration went further than the Benelux, it included our call for a competitive world-class cycling industry and business sector in the whole EU.
All credit to our Benelux partners, who have recognised that bike plan was missing a critical element. Now there is an opportunity for their governments officially recognise the strengths of the companies, investors, consultancies and innovators in the three countries and come up with proposals to help those companies become even more competitive.
We believe this will open the door for really constructive discussions to help companies, whether it is direct investment, strengthening skills, knowledge exchange or helping companies become more competitive internationally.
As CIE President Tony Grimaldi put it, “policies must become actions”, but there was no doubt last week that the cycling industries of Europe are now part of the EU industrial story.
Cycling: a job creation machine
Further to comments from Keynote speaker Kerstin Jorna (Director General, DG Grow) about cycling being a “job creation machine”, the biggest take-away from the day is just how much value cycling adds to local economies. And to prove this point, research presented from KU Leuven in the Summit’s afternoon session highlighted how bike leasing, bike sharing, and cycle logistics all have the potential to post significant net value added gains. Cycle logistics in particular promises €231 million in added value and 8,992 FTE jobs (the vast majority of which are local) based on this method of delivery being used in 25% of urban logistics. Value creation, jobs, and little in the way of negative externalities is surely the way forward for a clean, competitive and healthy Europe.
There has never been a better time to invest in the cycling industry
Supporting innovation in the cycling industry by working with private investors and public support structures was a key theme during the afternoon session on developing the ‘World-class European cycling industry’ called for by the EU Declaration on Cycling.
EIT Urban Mobility Director of Innovation Adriana Diaz presented a new funding programme, developed by her organisation, specifically targeting cycling start-ups and scale-ups. The calls for action to support cycling companies - stemming from the EU Declaration on Cycling and Mobility Transition Pathway - are now visibly shaping the way EU-level industry support organisations such as EIT channel their support towards industries, as cycling is increasingly singled out as a sector worthy of support. More opportunities for cycling companies can be expected – as long as cycling companies show appetite for public funding opportunities.
Her views on the huge potential for innovation and growth in cycling were echoed by René Wiertz, co-founder of Fundracer, who explained why he launched a dedicated investment company for light mobility and cycling. To elaborate on why this is the best time to invest in cycling companies, he cited recent research showing that Europe will remain the leading company for micro-mobility, with the market expected to grow threefold by 2035.
CIE 2024 Summit Material:
Look at the CIE 2024 Summit pictures here
All the CIE 2024 Summit pictures at the link are by Carolle Servayge
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