ESTA Director role passes to Florez de la Colina

The European Association of Abnormal Road Transport and Mobile Cranes, known as ESTA and based in Amsterdam in the Netherlands, has changed hands at the top. Miguel Florez de la Colina became director on 1 July 2026 as Ton Klijn retired after nearly a decade leading the body.

Klijn, director since 2017, is credited with raising the association's profile and building its influence in Brussels on the regulatory files that matter most to the heavy transport and mobile crane sectors. His successor, previously ESTA's policy officer, steps up from within.

Florez de la Colina, who trained and taught in Madrid and spent years at the heavy-lift firm Mammoet, inherits live European work, including the revisions to the Weights and Dimensions Directive and the push toward common electronic permitting.

The lesson for peers is the internal succession. Promoting an existing policy specialist into the top job kept institutional knowledge in place through the change, a route many smaller federations will recognise.