EESC calls on Member States to take action on setting up rail freight corridors - Main contents

CES/09/111

21 September 2009

EESC calls on Member States i to take action on setting up rail freight corridors

Member States must play a key role in coordinating the set-up of international rail corridors. Freight should be given priority to secure public and private investment and improve the quality, efficiency and general capacity of infrastructure. This was the main message that came out of a public presentation on European Rail freight corridors co-organised by the European Economic and Social Committee i (EESC) and the Meridian National Trade Union Federation of Romania, in Bucharest, Romania, on 17 September.

János Tóth , President of the EESC Section for Transport, Energy, Infrastructure and the Information Society ( TEN ), spoke at the event which was organised in partnership with the European Commission's Directorate-General for Energy and Transport ( DG TREN i ), the Romanian Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure and the Romanian Chamber of Deputies.

Mr Tóth welcomed the Commission's proposal for a Regulation to set up a European network for competitive freight, but stressed that concrete political action is required at corridor level so that public and private investment can be secured to increase the overall quality, efficiency and capacity of the infrastructure.

EESC Rapporteur Dumitru Fornea (Employees group, Romania) called for efficient high-level coordination. She said that national ministers from the different countries affected by a particular corridor should join forces to set up projects, within the framework of coordinated EU-level policy action.

Jonathan Scheele , Director at DG TREN , reiterated the fact that voluntary coordination was not enough: further legislative action was required at European level and companies also needed to be more open to competition. European programmes were important sources of financing for rail freight, but Member States had to cope with the challenges of co-financing and then delivering projects in the current economic downturn.

MEP Adriana Ticau, Vice President of the Committee on Transport and Tourism of the European Parliament said that the development of rail freight transport needs significant long-term investment, both to develop existing infrastructure and to modernise rolling stock.

During the debate which followed, representatives of the major umbrella organisations from railways at European level (CER, EIM, and CLECAT) and the key stakeholder organisations from Romanian railways (trade unions, infrastructure managers, railway undertakings) discussed the challenges involved in developing rail freight corridors.