How do you make Europe's rail network faster?

euronews (in English)

On Monday, rail sector specialists spent a six-hour train ride attempting to figure out how to fix a network that's fragmented, expensive and arguably holding back European growth.

Transcript

00:00A high-speed master plan by 2050 to connect all major European cities.

00:06The aspirations of Europe's rail sector aboard this train.

00:10During a six-hour journey from Brussels to Berlin,

00:13conversations flow on how to get the continent

00:16on a par with Asia's formidable rail network.

00:19Green MEP Tillie Metz says it's doable.

00:22I don't think it's a European. It's really a question of political will.

00:27Because the money would be there.

00:29And we just need a coherent approach, as I say.

00:33We need to come out of national egoism.

00:38Today there's a patchwork of rail networks in the EU.

00:41And studies say European countries have spent 15 trillion euros

00:45on road infrastructure and not enough on rail.

00:48Even industry says a high-speed network could create millions of jobs

00:52and slam CO2 emissions by five billion tons.

00:55So why is it not happening?

00:57We have to have a more efficient net.

01:00We want that the Commission allows us to give subsidies to trains

01:07so that we can have a fairer level of competition between trains and planes.

01:14Today it's unfair.

01:16We have to have a better level playing field between the two modes of transport.

01:22And we have to support the greenest one, which is the train.

01:25Today air travel is more popular than rail.

01:28It's cheaper and easier to buy a plane ticket.

01:31John Worth, this rail expert, says the challenges are immense.

01:35For different political reasons, crossing borders by train is hard.

01:39Because it's not the priority either of national governments

01:42or of national railway companies on those international connections.

01:45And that's why I want a bit more political action from the European Union

01:48to say, hey, these are the problems that you need to fix.

01:50All eyes on the incoming European Commissioner for Transport

01:53to see can he fix these problems and prioritise investment, decarbonisation

01:58and cross-border connectivity.

02:00Maeve McMahon, Euronews, Brussels.

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