Launched in 2000, the Forum brings together decision-makers from the automotive industry with key policymakers from major legislative institutions. It acts as an arena to debate current issues and exchange ideas.
 
Founder member and joint chairman Malcolm Harbour MEP believes that the Forum has filled a gap in Europe’s political community. He says: “We launched the Forum because we wanted to find a way where we could get members of the European parliament and other decision makers from the European Institutions together with the various stakeholders from the automotive sector. As you know it’s still going and going strongly. So we have certainly filled a need.”
 
An engineer by trade, Harbour spent over 30 years in the automotive industry before becoming an MEP in 1999. His involvement in the automotive sector on a political level soon followed. It was cemented after he met David Ward, who was director general of the FIA European Bureau at that time, and Alan Donnelly, a fellow MEP who would later become a consultant for the FIA.
 
At the time, Donnelly was involved in Automobile Users Intergroup, an intra-parliamentary body discussing automotive issues. But Donnelly, Ward and Harbour saw that it was necessary to create an external group which could act as a bridge between the European parliament and the automotive industry. The Forum was born soon after.
 
Harbour says: “We came up with the name Forum for the Automobile and Society. The FIA offered to provide the secretariat for it, which was a crucial move. Then we put together a membership package because it is funded by all the participants on a non-profit making basis.”
 
Five years on, the Forum is thriving and has become an important institution in Brussels’s political community. An indication of its prominence is that over 180 participants attended its last public meeting on February 21, 2006. Harbour says: “The turnout is normally very high. When we put the invitation out to this meeting we had 32 acceptances within 24 hours.”
 
The Forum generally holds around five or six meetings a year. Its latest meeting focused on the recent 10-year roadmap produced by the CARS21 High-Level Group.
 
CARS21, which stands for Competitive Automotive Regulatory System for the 21st Century, has put together a roadmap of recommendations to create a more competitive and safer car industry in the European Union. February’s Forum discussion, entitled CARS21: From Recommendations to Implementation, reviewed those recommendations and examined ways in which they can become national policies across Europe.
 
For this discussion, the Forum brought together a distinguished panel of speakers, all of whom participated in the work of the CARS 21 High Level Group. They included Carsten Hegerfeldt, Germany’s Deputy Director General for Industrial Policy; Georgette Lalis, Director, Directorate F ("Consumer Goods"), European Commission; Dr Reinhard Schulte-Braucks, Head of Unit Automotive Industry, European Commission; and David Ward, Director General of the FIA Foundation.
 
There is a feeling among its members that the Forum has an increasingly prevalent role in the decision making process of the European parliament. As Harbour puts it: “We’ve managed to hold discussions and get some dialogue and networking going which has helped to move the whole policy making process forward. There will continue to be controversial issues that have to be tackled in a number of ways and I think we’ll continue to play a part in that.”
 
The hot discussion topics at the moment revolve around the environment and technology. A major issue is the contribution of the car industry to its commitments on global warming.
 
Harbour says: “There are going to be a whole range of policy initiatives around that. One will be on fuels, for which we have a meeting in June. For instance, what are going to be the transport fuels of the future given that the industry wants to use less carbon heavy fuels?”
 
Another issue in this area is the process under which the industry takes to those commitments. Harbour says: “The industry is currently working to a voluntary agreement on CO2 emissions. Is that an appropriate mechanism? Shall we be thinking about more flexible systems such as carbon trading? That policy has yet to be developed so we must stimulate some debate about it.”
 
Then there is the question of sustaining a competitive automotive industry. It is a major employer and an important part of the European economy. At the same time it is under pressure to produce smaller, more fuel efficient cars.
 
Harbour asks: “Where is the investment going to come from? And what does that mean in terms of profitability? What do we need to do to help the industry restructure towards this goal.”
 
There are also a whole series of related issues surrounding transport policy and technology. For instance, a number of new areas will emerge when Galileo, the European satellite navigation project, is up and running in a few years time. It will yield technology that could track the position and movement of every car on the road in Europe.
 
Harbour says: “The technology will be available to track every car and charge them wherever they are at any time of day depending on road usage. Is that the way the industry wants to go? Is it politically sensible?”
 
New technologies are also set to have a major bearing on safety over the next few years. For instance, new e-Safety technologies such as the Electronic Stability Control system will help to reduce accidents on the road. These active safety devices can compensate driver error by automatically moderating a vehicle’s lateral stability through use of ABS and traction control technologies.
 
Harbour says: “EuroNCAP has been extremely successful in stimulating investment and engineering in occupant protection. But how are we going to provide incentives for active safety devices which clearly do have potential to save lives. Should we be having some sort of EuroNCAP system for active safety to encourage people to buy and pay for additional active safety devices? This debate will pave the way for the introduction of other important technologies such as cruise control and night vision instruments, so there’s a whole area of interest.”
 
It is through these kinds of debates that the Forum can help the European parliament to formulate policies in the automotive sector. It will become increasingly important as the automotive industry deals with multifarious issues emanating from new environmental legislature and technological developments. Clearly, the Forum for the Automobile and Society will have a prominent role to play in this area for many years to come.