ECG — 2025-04-17
News from ECG
The Eastern Europe Regional Meeting, which took place in Kaunas, Lithuania, was filled with interesting discussions. Important topics for the sector included the VDI Guideline 2700 , harmonisation of loaded length for vehicle transporters and the challenges regarding the eCMR, the digital version of the freight document.
Over 100 participants operating in Eastern Europe joined for the first ECG Eastern Europe Regional Meeting of the year.
Krzysztof Szeligowski at Adampol in Poland has been the chairman of these meetings for several years. He has seen the market's ups and downs.
”These meetings are important because people get together, exchange information, and set up cooperation between companies. Networking is the most crucial here. And, of course, the information about ECG activities and the different events”, says Krzysztof Szeligowski.
How is the market in Eastern Europe right now?
”Generally, the situation in Eastern Europe is stable. Compared to last year, we had a 3% decline in passenger car registrations in January and February, which is very similar to the situation in the European Union. According to the predictions for the rest of the year, it seems to be stable low as well if nothing extraordinary happens”, says Krzysztof Szeligowski.
However, there are exceptions to the stability. The statistics of the new passenger car registrations in January and February 2025 showed a decrease of 61,7% in Estonia and an increase of 29,5% in Lithuania. Krzysztof Szeligowski explains.
”Estonia's market has decreased by 61% this year compared to last year because the Estonian government introduced new taxes for new cars with environmental fees, which has led to a decrease in sales. On the other hand, the Lithuanian market has increased by 30% because companies are changing their corporate fleets.”
For Eastern European countries that are non-members of the EU, the number of passenger cars sold declined during January-March 2025, with -25,6% in Russia, -4,1% in Turkey, and -6,3% in Ukraine.
The forecast from S&P Global Mobility regarding the light vehicle production outlook in Europe is upgraded by 63,000 units for 2025 and 26,000 units for 2026. This is explained by the revision in EU Corporate Average Fuel Economy (EU CAFE) regulations that boost the volume of ICE vehicles.
Povilas Drizas, TTLA, International Transport and Logistics Alliance, talked about Lithuanian Road transport being 8% of the Lithuanian GDP, a quarter of the national export of services, 87,000 active truck drivers, and 6,900 freight transport companies.
This makes Lithuania the most export-oriented road transport industry in the EU and ranks third among the major players in the EU's international road transport.
“The road transport industry is one of the key drivers of Lithuania’s economy, and its impact is evident across multiple areas: the number of employees (every seventh employee works in transport and logistics), the share of exports (a quarter of all service exports), contribution to GDP, taxes paid, and more”, says Povilas Drizas.
Another interesting fact is that Lithuania invested more in new trucks than any other EU country from 2020 to 2024.
What are your thoughts and outlook for the future? Will road transport increase even more in Lithuania?
“Lithuania’s per capita investment in new trucks highlights how a small nation competes with larger economies. Looking ahead, Lithuania retains strong opportunities to sustain growth. A key driver is its success in expanding international operations turnover in recent years despite stagnant EU market conditions”, says Povilas Drizas. “Should manufacturing, trade, and the broader EU economy recover, Lithuania will be well-positioned to maintain its upward trajectory.”
Krzysztof Szeligowski describes the market in Eastern Europe as having more but smaller companies compared to Western Europe. Eastern Europe also has many drivers working with international freight, which means that Eastern Europe has many drivers from the Middle East, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and the Philippines.
What are the biggest challenges right now?
”We discussed everything from the VDI Guideline 2700 update, low volumes, low sales and eCMR. It's the same issues as in Western Europe”, says Krzysztof Szeligowski.
ECG recently published a legal opinion on the VDI Guideline that stating that the Guideline is not legally binding under public law. The VDI Guideline 2700 update came into force on September 1, 2024. VDI promoted the updated Guideline as mandatory under German traffic law, but according to the legal analysis published by ECG, the Guideline has no binding character. That means there is no legal obligation to certify trailers or equipment under public law unless otherwise stipulated in the individual contracts with customers.
Another topic was the increasing interest in the eCMR, the digital version of the freight document (CMR = Convention of the Contract for the International Carriage of Goods by Road). One challenge is that, even if the eCMR is acceptable as a valid document in some European countries, logistics service providers have experienced problems with acceptance of the digital version and have been fined. The topic regarding eCMR will be further investigated in an upcoming Business Intelligence Report by ECG.