On 24 June, the Council gave its blessing to the project. The EESC returned its opinion on 16 July, in the form of a long text containing, amongst other things, recitals on railway workers (which would not make the final cut), railway stations and railway museums. On 14 October, the CoR followed suit, calling for a budget of 12 million euros, and the Parliament adopted the report by Anna Deparnay-Grunenberg, with its numerous amendments and calls for an envelope of 16 million. Time was of the essence and the trilogue meetings saw an agreement at first reading on 18 November, which was then upheld by a resolution of the EP of 15 December and the formal approval of the Council on the 17th (see EUROPE 12625/41). The decision, dated 23 December, was published in the Official Journal five days later (OJEU L 437 of 28/12/2020, p. 108). Recital 12 woke of funding of at least €8 million: the Parliament had come into line with the Commission and the Council. The envelope is without question less than the scope of the challenge, but equal to that of the last European Year, which was given over to heritage (2018).
The aims of the Year include: promoting rail as a sustainable form of transport, also in the framework of tourism, highlighting its European and cross-border nature, bolstering its contribution to the economy, making a connection to neighbouring countries, using the evocative power of railways in the collective imagination, promoting railways as an attractive career and promoting the network of sleeper trains, contributing to the implementation of the of railway package, feeding into the debate with a view to modernising infrastructure and rolling stock. As for the measures, these include fairly conventional ones (initiatives and events, exhibitions, awareness campaigns, sharing experience, promotion via the median social networks) and a few more specific ideas (demonstration trains, partnerships with the ERA, railway cinema and museum festivals, interrail passes for young people, mobilising railway stations as places of art). The level of ambition is high and entirely justified.
On 1 January, the Commission launched its new website on the Year (https://europa.eu/year-of-rail/index_en ) listing some 20 activities from day one (see EUROPE 12628/13). On the 25th of that month, the European Railway Prize was awarded, as it has been every year since 2007. It was the job of the Portuguese Presidency of the Council to launch the Year. The event took place in Lisbon on 29 March and was attended by many figures, including the Commissioner for Transport, Adina-Ioana Vălean, who stressed the importance of the interoperability and digitalisation of the sector (see EUROPE 12688/7), which was certainly speaking to the people’s hearts.
When I visited it on 26 May, the Commission’s ad hoc website listed some 150 events, seven of which are scheduled to be held in 2022; unless I overlooked it somehow, no closing ceremony for the Year was announced. Unfortunately, the site features no press reviews: a lack of material?
Five years in, has the Year touched the hearts and minds of general public? If that is the aim, the easiest way to go about it is to refer to it unequivocally on the homepages of the websites of the major rail operators that are used by many travellers. I visited websites of nine major European railway companies (Deutsche Bahn, SNCF, SNCB Europe, Thalys, DSB, Trenitalia, CFL, NS.NL, PKP): not a word. The EU’s major railway stations? Nothing on the websites of the stations of Strasbourg, Luxembourg-City, Brussels-Midi, Frankfurt, Paris-Nord. The real one is, then? There are at least 35 of them in the EU and I tried: Bahnpark Augsburg, Süddeustche Eisenbahnmuseum Heilbronn, Feld und indutriebahnmuseum, Train World, Cité du train de Mulhouse (which styles itself “Europe’s largest railway museum”), Musée national ferroviaire de Pietrarsa: I drew a blank with all of them. The only exception was the Railway Museum of Catalonia, which referred to a conference on the Year which was held on 26 April.
The Year appears on the homepages of the ERA (with a video in just one language and a handful of events or investigations), the European Railway Community (superb), UNIFE, EIM. But nothing on the websites of Shift2Rail, ERFA or Allrail – all of which attended the decision-time meeting referred to above – or Railteam. Do they believe in it themselves? Europalia has announced its major programme Trains and Track, one of the flagship events of the Year, but you have to go a long way into the text to find any reference to it.
With my last remaining ray of hope, I went back to basics. Parliament, the Commission, the Council: not a sausage – in trilogue (?)…
Decision-makers rely heavily on social networks. Let us take the most famous of these, Facebook. If we type in “Année européenne du rail”, all we get is the page of the UAICF (Union artistique et intellectuelle des cheminots français), which is making a contribution through its art exhibitions. Trying the same in English gives slightly better results (photos, series of events, interest groups). But my conclusion is that the debate on European rail transport is not quite all the rage.
Although December’s decision got the odd mention in the major media, they have not really covered the Year since its beginning; you have to look to the specialist media (Euronews, Euractiv etc.) for any success. It is pretty safe to say that the general public have yet to hear about this initiative and what it’s about.
Various entities representing the railway sector have asked for the Year to be extended into 2022, as the Covid 19 pandemic is currently hampering the programme. However, some hundred MEPs have written to the President of the Commission to call for 2022 to become – get this – the European Year of Aviation (Euractiv, 15 avril). Given the billions of euros in State aid to the aeronautical sector that have already been approved by the institution – some of which were recently overturned by the General Court of the EU (see EUROPE 12722/24) – we cannot rule out the possibility that it will run with the idea. That would be tantamount to celebrating the most polluting form of transport after the least.
The Battle of the Rails is not yet won.
Renaud Denuit