Francois Bausch Addresses Reconstruction of Transport Infrastructure in Ukraine

On Wednesday 5 October 2022, François Bausch, Luxembourg's Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Mobility and Public Works, took part in the seventh conference "International Rail Forum & Conference 2022" which took place in Prague, Czech Republic.

The conference is a flagship event for the international rail sector, which brought together many experts, political actors and rail professionals around the theme "Let's Build a New Generation of Railway Together". Minister Bausch participated as a panelist in the first session on the contribution of the railway sector within the framework of the European Green Deal. During his presentation, the Minister underlined that the train must be considered as a sustainable, attractive and resilient form of transport. This means of transport must be part of an intelligent multimodal mobility that must meet the needs of citizens.

Thus, high and long-term investments in rail infrastructure and rolling stock are essential to improve the fluidity of traffic and the interoperability of the trans-European rail system. It is essential to meet the demand for mobility of tomorrow by modernizing and developing the infrastructure by improving the quality of rail services and the supply of international rail links, he stated.

The trip to Prague was also an opportunity for Minister Bausch to meet his Czech counterpart, Martin Kupka, Minister of Transport for a bilateral meeting on the subject of hydrogen as energy for the different modes of transport, in particular for the transport sector and aviation. Taking climate change into account, the meeting deepened discussions on the importance of decarbonisation in the transport sector and further investment in the deployment of infrastructure for the production of sustainable fuel from renewable energy.

The revision work by the European Commission of the RTR-T (trans-European transport network) regulation under the Czech presidency was also discussed, in particular the question linked to interoperability in order to improve the transport of passengers and goods at European level. 

As part of the solidarity reaction in favour of Ukraine, the two Ministers of Transport had the opportunity to discuss the need to provide rail support for the urgent reconstruction of its transport infrastructure.

Another main topic on the agenda concerned the development of electromobility as well as the need for a dense charging infrastructure supplemented by fast charging terminals which are to be installed on the motorway axes, but also in the secondary road network. 

Finally, Martin Kupka expressed his admiration for Luxembourg's new 2035 National Mobility Plan, which proposes a global concept to manage 40% more travel compared to 2017.