news & events

The Treaty of Lisbon entered into force on 1 December 2009. The Commission believes that the new treaty provides significant new benefits for citizens and will settle the institutional debate for the foreseeable future.

José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, announced on 27 November the portfolio’s responsibilities for the next Commission.

At an extraordinary summit , EU heads of state and government unanimously backed Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy as the first permanent EU president and current Trade Commissioner Baroness Catherine Ashton as High Representative for Foreign Affairs.

Lina Konstantinopoulou, Project Manager at ERTICO – ITS Europe gives an insight into the current status of the Cooperative Vehicle-Infrastructure Systems (CVIS) project and how it could be deployed in the future.

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to communicate through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing? “We want to use Twitter to give online users an extra outlet to dialogue with us,” says Dirk De Muynck, Director of Communications & Media Relations at Volvo Group Representation-EU.

Where is the cargo and when is it expected to arrive? Now transport buyers no longer have to call the haulage firm every time these questions arise. Instead, they can obtain detailed information about their cargo on the Internet at any time. This is one of several new functions in the latest version of Volvo Trucks’ transport information system, Dynafleet, which is being launched today.

The Swedish government has decided that Sweden will continue to participate in the European launch-vehicle program. This means that Volvo Aero’s space operations in Trollhättan will be saved and can continue to advance. “The government’s proposal is very positive. This means that we will maintain our leading position in nozzles and turbines for space rockets,” says Staffan Zackrisson, President of Volvo Aero.

The Swedish Energy Agency is to contribute EUR 8,7 M to eight of the Volvo Group’s research projects that are aimed at reducing fuel consumption and emissions of greenhouse gases from commercial vehicles. Several of the projects are related to projects that are partly financed by the US Department of Energy and are being conducted by the Volvo Group in the US.

WirelessCar has been selected to be the Telematics Service Provider for BMW in Europe. This prestigious contract will ultimately connect all newly produced vehicles on these markets from June 2010 and forward and also include a migration path for all legacy vehicles currently operating in the marketplace.

A group of employees from the Volvo Group in Göteborg, Sweden, have been taking part in a project in which a personal CO2 “pedometer” has kept a check on what their commuting to work costs in the form of carbon emissions. Their journeys were registered using software in their mobile phones and a concept developed by Volvo IT. By changing their behaviour, the group succeeded in reducing their carbon footprint by more than 30%.