On track for much more than a market

Much More than a Market – the report authored by Mr Enrico Letta and commissioned by the EU Council to assess the fitness of the EU Single Market – identifies key priorities to guarantee efficient and sustainable continent-wide mobility, priorities that echo many of the core messages set out in On Track for Europe, the CER policy agenda for the next legislature.

Both documents make a similar assessment of the scarcity of public budget, the need to scale-up the EU Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) and to explore new ways to attract private investments, the need for a functioning intermodal Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) with an adequately sized funding facility, the value of connecting European capitals and major urban hubs via high-speed rail infrastructure, and the importance of key technological enablers of railways – the European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS), Digital Automatic Coupling (DAC) for digital freight services, and Digital Capacity Management (DCM).

To build on these synergies and further reflect on the future of railways and their contribution to the EU Single Market, CER and the Jacques Delors Institute are organsing this joint event in Brussels.

A list of key topics to be discussed during the event include, inter alia: the development of rail infrastructure (especially for high-speed rail services), the deployment of rail technological enablers (ERTMS, DAC, DCM), rail public funding, the role of private capital to finance rail projects.