On Tuesday 23 June, the European Parliament’s Committee on Transport and Tourism (TRAN) examined a draft resolution calling for the creation of a European high-speed rail network to be stepped up more quickly.
The rapporteur, Vicent Marzà Ibáñez (Greens/EFA, Spanish), welcomed the action plan presented by the European Commission in November 2025 (see EUROPE 13746/5), while arguing for more binding targets.
The text calls in particular for the network to serve all urban areas with more than 250,000 inhabitants, complementing conventional, regional and suburban rail services. It also calls for funding under the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) to be directed towards certain abandoned or poorly served cross-border links.
To encourage a modal shift away from aviation and road transport, the draft resolution calls for binding European targets by 2027 for the deployment of high-speed rail and for modal shift by 2040. Moreover, in his draft, the rapporteur considers that the exemptions from which aviation still benefits create a distortion of competition to the detriment of rail.
The draft resolution places emphasis on infrastructure financing, while investment needs are estimated at €345 billion, proposing mobilising revenues from the Emissions Trading System (ETS) and stepping up deployment of the European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS). Lastly, it argues for a European industrial strategy to reduce fragmentation in the rail sector and make it more competitive.
The European Parliament instructed its President, Roberta Metsola, to forward this resolution to the EU Council and the European Commission.
See the draft resolution (in French): https://aeur.eu/f/mi2 (Original version in French by Juliette Verdes)