Congratulating Ursula von der Leyen on her reappointment as EU Commission President, UNIFE highlights that the European rail supply industry is an “ideal partner’ to improve EU’s new plan on the development of “home and globally” doing business “while also tackling climate change through a Clean Industrial Deal”.
“Now is the time to back that up by delivering on competitiveness, so we can further slash transport emissions. Competitiveness and climate action go hand in hand, and one does not have to be at the expense of the other. A Clean Industrial Deal is the right way to be looking at these dual challenges and turn them into opportunities. With the right job-creating rules and settings in place, our industry has the ability to transform European transport networks and to breathe life back into the industrial ecosystem across many supply chains,” UNIFE Director General Enno Wiebe said.
The European rail supply industry is an industry of EUR 45.8 billion and 650,000 jobs and represents 1 million persons directly and 1.3 million persons indirectly hired.
This industry is “an agile and modern industry ready for European competitiveness reform, which would free up business to do what it does best – create jobs, products and prosperity for Europe,” UNIFE says.
Suggested improvements for boosting competitiveness include reducing EU reporting requirements for business, enforcing a level-playing field for trade with non-EU actors and making it easier for the development of technological advances such as AI for European companies.
By implementing such changes, there is the chance to radically improve productivity, enable innovation and create jobs in an industry that, when on the rails, produces only 0.4% of Europe’s total transport greenhouse gas emissions.
Already established and representing major providers of net-zero mobility solutions, UNIFE is ready to contribute to finer details of the Clean Industrial Deal, which has the potential to foster Europe-grown, cutting-edge clean industry.
Further to this, streamlining rail regulations and the harmonising of rules in co-operation with Member States, has the ability to end the ‘patchwork’ of rail networks and create a truly unified ‘Single European Railway Area’, which will allow more passengers to make cross-border journeys.
In conjunction with key industrial reforms, investment in rail via EU funding has the ability to renew European regions which increasingly feel deprived of services and job opportunities, while also driving the next generation of innovative mobility technology to build and export to the world.
UNIFE advocates for more than 120 of Europe’s leading rail supply companies and brings together national rail industry associations from 11 European countries. Association’s members have an 84% market share in Europe and supply 46% of the worldwide rail production.
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