The Community of European Railway and Infrastructure Companies (CER) and the European Transport Workers’ Federation (ETF) presented their adopted Joint Declaration on Rail Freight on the occasion of the 2nd European Rail Freight Day, which took place on 4 December 2015 in Vienna.
The Joint Declaration stresses the importance of relaunching rail freight and presents proposals for measures to be adopted as part of a ‘fairness and growth plan for rail freight in Europe’.
Despite the modal shift goals set out in both the 2001 and 2011 Transport White Papers, rail freight is still suffering from chronic underinvestment in infrastructure and unfavourable competitive conditions with other transport modes. As a consequence, employment in the sector has been negatively affected by this critical situation in several EU member states.
The ‘fairness and growth plan’ proposed by the social partners includes actions that aim to ensure reliable long-term funding of rail infrastructure, the better inclusion of rail freight in logistics chains, and the achievement of fair competitive conditions and a fair social level playing field between the different transport modes.