Member states back cross-border initiative for autonomous vehicle testbeds
On June 8th 2026, along the Transport Council taking place in Luxembourg, and together with Commissioner for Sustainable Transport and Tourism, Apostolos Tzitzikostas, 18 EU Member States signed a Joint Declaration of intent on large-scale cross-border testbeds for autonomous vehicles
The declaration will support cross-border deployment of autonomous vehicle use cases in areas such as public transport, freight and logistics. Participating States will work together on common principles for approval and coordinated permitting procedures, as well as concrete deployment activities across Europe built around specific use cases and operational needs, with the goal of facilitating large-scale testing and future commercial deployment across borders.
The Declaration was signed by Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Polen, and Sweden, and it marks an important milestone under the European Automotive Action Plan.
Such an event further showcases the shared objective of accelerating autonomous vehicles deployment in Europe in a safe, coordinated, and competitive way. Thanks to greater regulatory certainty innovators and investors will be facilitated, fostering European competitiveness on a global scale.
The signing marks an important milestone under the European Automotive Action Plan and reflects a shared ambition to accelerate the harmonised deployment of autonomous vehicles across Europe in a safe, coordinated and competitive way for Europe’s industry.
The European Automotive Action Plan
The European Automotive Action Plan was put forward by the European Commission on March, 5th 2025, following several multiple discussions and stakeholder engagement as well as open public consultation on the future of the European automotive industry, and th work of several working groups led by Commissioners Šefčovič, Hoekstra, Séjourné, Virkkunen, Mînzatu and Tzitzikostas.
The initiative foresees two parallel workstreams: one focused on developing common principles and coordinated approaches for permitting and approval procedures, and another focused on practical deployment activities and use-case clustering, notably in public transport, freight and logistics.
As a first supporting measure, the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) 2026 work programme foresees EUR 20 million for digital infrastructure dedicated to autonomous driving under the reflow call to be launched in June this year.