Twelve European associations from industry, industry and Rail transport and freight forwarding have published a open letter urging the EU institutions to are currently engaged in trilogue negotiations on the regulation on the management of European rail capacity to adopt an ambitious and international approach to the dossier. The regulation, which aims to shift Europe's rail capacity from a manual, national and rigid system to a digital system, and flexible, was proposed by the European Commission on 10 July 2023 and since last November the text is the subject of trilogue negotiations between the Commission the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union.

In the letter, signed by the associations AERRL, CEFIC, CEPI, CLECAT, COCERAL, ECG, ERFA, ESC, EUROFER, FEPORT, UIP and UIRR, yes highlights that the demand for freight services in the Union is increasing year on year and that the strategic importance of the Rail freight transport as a means of connecting industries, ports European markets are becoming increasingly prevalent for ensure the smooth functioning of European supply chains, and of the economy in general. "Today's reality, however, - wrote the associations - is that freight transport on Rail is struggling to prove its potential. Too many trains are delayed, limited due to operational constraints or are deleted altogether. Much of this is due to the fact that infrastructure management is still mostly in the national domain, with a strong focus on domestic and passenger needs. More than 50% of freight trains in Europe, and up to 90% for intermodal trains, cross at least one internal border, which means that the freight transport by rail today mainly manages services across a patchwork of national networks'.

The associations noted that "the regulation on the capacity of railway infrastructure offers valuable opportunities to move towards the Single Rail Area with a customer-oriented approach. This - they have - is increasingly important for markets that particularly dependent on cross-border capacity such as intermodal transport. A strengthening of the coordination of the capacity management, including consultation of all stakeholders as proposed in the Regulation, not only increase the overall capacity available on the European network, but will crucially improve the quality of the and the number of train paths available for the transport of goods by rail, thus making them more attractive to end users and contributing to better functioning of European supply chains".

According to the associations, "this will be achieved only if the trilogue partners have the ambition to move away status quo, which makes it difficult for the ability of the rail freight to offer cross-border services due to network fragmentation. The agreement of the trilogue - they stressed - should help provide the flexible and digitized programming and the management of the skills needed by the owners of the goods, the freight forwarders, as well as freight transport operators on rail and their direct customers".

In particular, for the associations, the negotiators of the trilogue should ensure that 'the European Framework Programmes are adopted through a process that allows them to be binding and any deviation that needs to be proposed in a trial transparent and ultimately requires the approval of the regulatory frameworks". Noting that "the regulation introduces strong incentives through commercial conditions that effectively encourage capacity management focusing on the movement of cross-border trains in line with their original railway track", the associations have specified that "this is particularly important to offset negative impacts avoidable bottlenecks related to the limitation of capacity".

Among the other exhortations addressed to the trilogue negotiators, the associations consider it necessary to ensure that "any modification to a railway path must be dealt with in its entirety, especially those railway tracks that involve more than an infrastructure manager".