Brussels July 2001

On Wednesday 18 July 2001, the European Commission adopted a communication summarising the political guidelines of the White Paper on ‘European transport policy in the run up to 2010’, expected for September 2001.

In the communication, several issues and challenges for the transport sector in the run up to 2010 are highlighted that will entail courageous moves by the European institutions, national policy-makers and industry partners to achieve the ambitious and necessary goals that the document outlines.

UNIFE (The European Association of Railway Industries) welcomes the Communication’s proposed strategies and the means to achieve sustainable mobility in an enlarged European Union. Among them, UNIFE supports the proposed modal shift to be promoted through regulatory and economic means such as infrastructure charging and the promotion of a level-playing field across modes.

UNIFE also maintains that the stakeholders involved in the transport value chain should take up the challenge of improving the transport system as a whole and foster its competitiveness. For this reason, the EU-funded Marco Polo Program for the promotion of inter-modal transport is regarded as a useful tool to encourage a high-level of co-operation among the diverse transport actors.

UNIFE also believes that the courageous moves towards a more competitive and commercial approach to transport, in the respect of common rules, should be undertaken by all actors and promoted at all levels of policy-making.

The specific measures that have been foreseen for rail represent the first important steps towards the establishment of a regulatory and economic framework that will help the rail mode to regain market share and support a more harmonious development of the transport market as well as reduce bottlenecks and increase traffic capacity.

In this regard, UNIFE welcomes the proposal to raise the participation of EU funding up to 20 per cent of total costs, for trans-European cross-border rail projects that go over natural barriers.

The highlighted proposals present opportunities as well as challenges for the railway sector stakeholders (operators and supply industry) to enhance performance in a competitive environment. UNIFE recognises that a more commercial attitude vis-à-vis final transport customers and technological innovations need to be enhanced and promoted.

In this regard, UNIFE encourages and supports the idea of a new package of regulatory reform to further boost competitiveness in the rail mode and support the efforts that the industry is making towards this aim. UNIFE itself aims to play an integral role in this process.

The Memorandum of Understanding on the Establishment of a Single European Railway System by implementing the Interoperability requirements and the implementation of a Joint European Rail Research (recently signed by UNIFE, UIC, CER, UITP* and the European Commission), represents a first pro-active move to the realisation of these ambitious goals.

Nevertheless, further initiatives and courageous decisions need to be taken at all levels of the decision-making process (European and national) to thoroughly implement these objectives and guarantee sustainable mobility to the future enlarged Union.

UNIFE represents nearly 100 leading European companies responsible for the design, manufacture, maintenance and refurbishment of guided land transport systems, subsystems and related equipments. UNIFE has 10 National Organisations as associated members representing another 900 railway supply companies. The European rail supply industry generates 20 Billion Euros in revenue per year and employs 130 000 people. UNIFE members manufacture 60% of the world-wide production of rail equipment.

* UIC (Railway International Union), CER (Community of European Railways), UITP (International Union of Public Transport)