Óscar Puente calls for a common position to speed up train manufacturing processes in Europe

The Minister for Transport and Sustainable Mobility, Óscar Puente, and the First Vice-President of the European Commission for a Clean, Just and Competitive Transition, Teresa Ribera, meeting in Brussels

The Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility met in Brussels with Teresa Ribera, First Executive Vice-President of the European Commission for a Clean, Just and Competitive Transition, to address the most pressing challenges facing European and Spanish transport, with particular emphasis on the need for a common position to accelerate train manufacturing processes in Europe.

In this week's second meeting with senior representatives of the European Commission, following yesterday's meeting with the European Commission's Commissioner for Sustainable Transport and Tourism, Apostolos Tzitzikostas, Puente reiterated the need to accelerate train manufacturing processes in Europe to enhance the competitiveness of the railway industry. This is an objective that can only be tackled through a multilateral approach, in which all European countries participate and seek ways to optimise manufacturing processes, gaining efficiency and, therefore, competitiveness. "It's about reaching an agreement across the entire EU to shorten lead times as much as possible and make our industry more competitive, also in terms of price and quality", he stated.

Currently, Europe's train manufacturing and delivery times are significantly longer compared to other major players like China. Puente believes that this delay is due not only to a slowdown in the certification and authorisation processes, but also in all phases of the process. "Spain believes it is necessary to open a broader discussion on the efficiency of the European railway industrial process. The bottlenecks are not only in the final authorisation, but also in manufacturing times, project management, the availability of on-board equipment such as ERTMS and the capacity of manufacturers to respond to European demand", said the Spanish minister.

Non official translation