At the 28th UNIFE General Assembly, the Dublin Declaration was signed in order to raise the awareness of EU and national decision-makers on the crucial importance of railway industry for the sustainable development of Europe and whole planet.
Within the Declaration, the Members of the Presiding Board of the European Rail Industry Association urge the EU and Member States to act in three main areas.
On level playing field and business environment area, the Declaration calls for the swift implementation of the Technical Pillar of the Fourth Railway Package, for the promotion of the Best Price-Quality Ratio in Public Procurement and for securing international market access as well as fair global competition based on the principle of reciprocity.
Regarding the innovation and investment, UNIFE calls for the extension of the Shift2Rail Programme for Research & Innovation in the framework of Horizon Europe and for making rail the backbone of the TEN-T with ambitious EU funds, in particular the CEF and the Structural Funds, for rail infrastructure and ERTMS deployment.
The third area includes ‘people’, where UNIFE calls for a dedicated EU initiative to improve skills intelligence and address skills shortages in our industry.
The participants recognised both the strategic importance of the manufacturing sector and the need to act without any delay to ensure that European rail manufacturing companies keep their global leadership in a context of growing and fierce world competition.
Railway sector is the greenest and safest mode of mass transport. With its high energy efficiency, its low emissions of CO2 and its capacity to safely move millions of people and tonnes of goods all over the world, rail is definitely the solution to meet the challenges facing the planet, from globalisation to urbanisation and, of course, climate change.
As a forward-looking industry, UNIFE has been intensifying its efforts to fully embrace the challenge of digitalization. During the event, Philippe Citroën, UNIFE Director General called on the European Commission to establish a European Platform on Digitalisation in the railway sector.
During its Statutory meeting, UNIFE also officially accepted 9 new members into the association: Dutch Analytics BV (Netherlands), Elcowire Rail GmbH (Germany), IVM Srl (Italy), Konux (Germany), Leonardo SpA (Italy), RideOnTrack (Belgium), STIMIO (France), Triorail Bahnfunk (Germany), and WenzeL Elektronik GmbH (Germany).
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