In a statement published on Thursday 28 May, the Chair of the European Parliament's Committee on Transport and Tourism, Karima Delli, the Executive Director of the European Union Agency for Railways, Josef Doppelbauer, the heads of 16 European companies such as SNCF and SBB Cargo International, as well as several representatives of the sector, set out their priorities and lines of work with a view to relaunching rail freight transport in the EU.
This coalition, created a few weeks ago (see EUROPE 12481/12), intends to increase the modal share of rail freight in Europe from the current 18% to 30% by 2030.
To this end, it considers it necessary to align the conditions of competition between road and rail freight and calls on the EU Council to conclude its discussions on the taxation of heavy goods vehicles as soon as possible (see EUROPE 12491/6).
The coalition's statement also calls for further investment in new technologies and the digitalisation of the sector.
Lastly, among the priorities identified, the issue of financial and economic support for the sector is high on the agenda. This support will have to be “conditioned to eco-friendly investments” and could involve the adoption of national measures reducing track access fees for rail freight operators.
More ambition. For the time being, however, the allocation of funds to such a project does not seem to be one of the Commission's priorities.
Its recovery plan and its revised proposal for a Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) for 2021-2027, presented on Wednesday (see EUROPE 12494/1), do not pay much attention to the transport sector. Only the budget for the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) programme is expected to be increased by €1.5 billion.
“A positive signal, but not sufficient for an overall shift to green mobility”, according to the Community of European Railway and Infrastructure Companies (CER), whose director is one of the signatories of the declaration. Like Mrs Delli (see EUROPE 12495/19), the organisation called on the Commission to be more ambitious.
Read the statement: https://bit.ly/2yGBIq6 (Original version in French by Agathe Cherki)