The Transport and Tourism (TRAN) Committee of the European Parliament adopted yesterday, Monday 5th December 2016, the motion for a resolution ‘’Logistics in the EU and multimodal transport in the new TEN-T corridors’’ – Rapporteur MEP Mrs. Ines Ayala Sender. The report now is expected to be voted in plenary in early 2017.

EIM – the Association representing rail infrastructure managers in Europe – welcomes the TRAN Committee’s vote, the work done by the Rapporteur, and expresses its strong supports for the main messages enshrined in the report. Notably, the report highlights the importance of developing an integrated multimodal freight transport across Europe, calls for better coordination between the EU’s TEN-T priorities and Member States’ national infrastructure plans, and underlines the importance to ensure enough financial resources for the actual completion of the TEN-T networks within the predetermined deadlines.

EIM has been vocally advocating rail’s essential role in ensuring that goods are channelled in a quicker and more efficient way throughout the full logistics chain. In this regard, EIM remarks the importance of last-mile infrastructures and their integration in the wider supply chain. Moreover, railway links, allowing swifter connection between ports and TEN-T corridors, can be the key-enablers of seamless, sustainable and innovative transport chains across the different modes.

Monika Heiming, EIM’s Executive Director, said: ‘’Rail, in close synergies with the other modes of transport , can play a fundamental role in helping logistics services to strike the right balance between efficiency, cost-effectiveness and climate change commitments. From EIM’s and its Members’ side, there is a full engagement in providing a well-maintained and integrated European transport infrastructure in order to ensure the successful completion of the TEN-T Network. Following this further, EIM recommends that the necessary financial resources to these tasks are ensured in the years to come’’.