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Société nationale SNCF

SNCF

SNCF is a leading global operator in passenger transport and freight logistics.

Lobbying Activity

Meeting with François Kalfon (Member of the European Parliament)

29 Jan 2026 · Paquet billettique

SNCF Urges Inclusion of Biofuels and Fossil Fuel Transport

5 Dec 2025
Topic — The initiative reviews technical screening criteria for the EU taxonomy environmental delegated act.
Message — SNCF proposes classifying biofuel-powered trains as a sustainable investment. They recommend allowing the transport of fossil fuels by rail. They also seek to update accounting rules for investment reporting.123
Why — Revised investment definitions would prevent the significant underestimation of their green transition efforts.4
Impact — Environmental groups may oppose weaker criteria for biofuels and the transport of fossil fuels.5
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Meeting with Laurence Farreng (Member of the European Parliament) and Fédération bancaire française and

25 Nov 2025 · Défis européens des grandes entreprises françaises

Meeting with Kai Tegethoff (Member of the European Parliament, Shadow rapporteur)

23 Nov 2025 · CEF & SDBTR

Meeting with François Kalfon (Member of the European Parliament)

14 Nov 2025 · Fret ferroviaire

Meeting with Sandro Santamato (Head of Unit Mobility and Transport)

13 Nov 2025 · SNCF Voyages Italia’s plans to access the Italian high-speed market

SNCF calls for EU rail technology funding in Competitiveness Fund

12 Nov 2025
Topic — EU budget priorities for supporting European competitiveness after 2027.
Message — SNCF requests that work programmes fund key rail technologies like ERTMS and FRMCS deployment, urban transport hubs, diesel rail decarbonisation through hydrogen and battery trains, and military mobility infrastructure upgrades including tunnel adaptations and specialized rolling stock.1234
Why — This would help SNCF meet mandatory EU infrastructure deadlines and reduce high costs of zero-emission technologies.567
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SNCF Urges Renewal of Europe's Rail Partnership with €18bn Investment

7 Nov 2025
Topic — Future Horizon Europe research and innovation framework programme for 2028-2034.
Message — SNCF calls for renewing the Europe's Rail public-private partnership with €1.5 billion from Horizon Europe, matched by €1.5 billion private investment for R&I, plus €15 billion from the European Competitiveness Fund for pre-deployment. They want an inclusive governance structure involving industry, operators, infrastructure managers, research institutes and SMEs.12
Why — This would secure coordinated EU funding to maintain their European leadership in railway technology and operations.34
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Meeting with Martine Kemp (Member of the European Parliament, Shadow rapporteur)

5 Nov 2025 · Brussels

SNCF urges EU budget priority for rail network regeneration

3 Nov 2025
Topic — Consultation on the next EU long-term budget and funding for regional cohesion.
Message — SNCF calls for prioritizing rail network regeneration and modernization in partnership plans. They request dedicated funding for essential digital safety technologies like ERTMS.12
Why — Multi-year financial visibility would secure infrastructure planning and reduce project instability.34
Impact — Passengers and freight users face safety risks and delays from network degradation.5
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SNCF Urges Increased EU Funding for Sustainable Rail Infrastructure

29 Oct 2025
Topic — The consultation covers the next EU long-term budget for trans-European transport infrastructure.
Message — SNCF requests a larger transport budget to meet decarbonization targets and fund digital signaling. They also want funding for domestic rail links that connect major cross-border routes.123
Why — This would reduce the company's internal costs for modernizing the national rail network.4
Impact — European passengers face a fragmented and inefficient rail network if funding is insufficient.5
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Meeting with François Kalfon (Member of the European Parliament, Shadow rapporteur)

23 Oct 2025 · Capacités ferroviaires et Mobilité militaire

Response to Proposal for a Regulation on Military Mobility

21 Oct 2025

Please find attached SNCF Group's contribution to the consultation.
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Meeting with Sergio Oliete Josa (Head of Unit Directorate-General for International Partnerships)

21 Oct 2025 · Follow-up Global Gateway Railway Working Group (GGRWG)

SNCF Group urges zero-rated VAT for international rail travel

16 Oct 2025
Topic — This consultation explores revising VAT rules for passenger transport and travel agencies.
Message — SNCF calls for extending zero-rated VAT to cross-border land transport to match aviation. They also suggest administrative simplifications like a one-stop shop for tax returns. Finally, the group requests aligning input tax rules across all transport modes.123
Why — Rail operators would achieve price parity with aviation and lower compliance costs.45
Impact — Airlines would lose their current financial and administrative tax advantage over rail.6
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Response to Digital package – digital omnibus

14 Oct 2025

Please find attached SNCF Group's contribution.
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Meeting with François Kalfon (Member of the European Parliament, Shadow rapporteur)

3 Oct 2025 · Count Emissions EU & distribution des billets

Meeting with François Kalfon (Member of the European Parliament)

19 Sept 2025 · Transport ferroviaire

Response to European Climate Law amendment

15 Sept 2025

Please find attached the SNCF Group's contribution to the consultation on the European Climate Law amendment.
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SNCF urges EU to include diesel rail in investment plan

4 Sept 2025
Topic — Strategic framework to boost public and private investments into renewable and low-carbon transport fuels.
Message — SNCF demands the plan include all transport modes, particularly non-electrified rail lines. They argue that ignoring diesel rail misses a credible way to reduce emissions.12
Why — The plan would help SNCF scale up technologies and improve their service attractiveness.3
Impact — The environment loses because the EU risks missing its demanding 2030 climate milestones.4
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Meeting with François Kalfon (Member of the European Parliament, Shadow rapporteur)

22 Jul 2025 · Mobilité militaire

Response to EU harmonised specifications for control-command and signalling

17 Jul 2025

Please find attached our contribution to the consultation.
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Meeting with Arthur Corbin (Cabinet of Executive Vice-President Stéphane Séjourné) and TotalEnergies SE and

10 Jul 2025 · Clean industrial deal Financement Simplification

Meeting with Felix Fernandez-Shaw (Director Directorate-General for International Partnerships) and

9 Jul 2025 · Shaping a new Team Europe approach towards LAC in order to increase the success rate of EU Railways industry on tenders on the region.

Meeting with François Kalfon (Member of the European Parliament)

4 Jul 2025 · Décarbonation

Meeting with Kristian Schmidt (Director Mobility and Transport)

6 Jun 2025 · Single European Railway area

Meeting with Barbara Brandtner (Director Competition)

6 Jun 2025 · Panorama du marché de la grande vitesse en Europe

Meeting with Eric Von Breska (Director Mobility and Transport)

5 Jun 2025 · Single European Railway area

SNCF group urges EU to prioritize sovereign and ethical AI

4 Jun 2025
Topic — The initiative aims to boost industrial AI uses and improve the delivery of public services.
Message — SNCF advocates for a sovereign European AI sector to reduce dependence on non-EU technology providers. They insist on maintaining high ethical standards under the AI Act. They also support fostering academic-industrial research partnerships.123
Why — Using AI for predictive maintenance will lower costs and improve railway infrastructure safety.4
Impact — Non-European technology firms could lose market share to sovereign European competitors.56
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Response to Policy agenda for cities

26 May 2025

Vous trouverez ci-joint la contribution du Groupe SNCF au Nouveau programme stratégique de l'UE pour les villes.
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Meeting with Tilly Metz (Member of the European Parliament, Rapporteur)

20 May 2025 · Railway capacity regulation

Meeting with Nathalie Berger (Director Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs)

19 May 2025 · SNCF wished to discuss the revision of European directives on public procurement.

Response to Connecting Europe through high-speed rail

8 May 2025

Please find attached the feedback of SNCF.
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Meeting with Hans Stausboll (Acting Director Directorate-General for International Partnerships) and

6 May 2025 · Shaping a new Team Europe approach towards Asia and Sub- Saharan Africa in order to develop rail projects in both regions while ensuring the competitiveness of the EU’s railways industry.

Meeting with Kai Tegethoff (Member of the European Parliament, Shadow rapporteur)

23 Apr 2025 · Passenger rights in the context of multimodal journeys

Meeting with Arthur Corbin (Cabinet of Executive Vice-President Stéphane Séjourné), Valentina Schaumburger (Cabinet of Executive Vice-President Stéphane Séjourné)

15 Apr 2025 · Transport

Response to Foreign Subsidies Guidelines

2 Apr 2025

Please find attached the SNCF Group's contribution.
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Meeting with Felix Fernandez-Shaw (Director Directorate-General for International Partnerships) and

31 Mar 2025 · Shaping a new Team Europe approach towards LAC in order to increase the success rate of EU Railways industry on tenders on the region.

Meeting with Apostolos Tzitzikostas (Commissioner) and

28 Mar 2025 · Exchange of views on rail

Meeting with Joachim Luecking (Head of Unit Mobility and Transport)

27 Mar 2025 · Introductory meeting (Exchange of views on the main challenges of the sector (FRMCS, development of TSIs, revision of the Train Drivers’ Directive, OSDM)

SNCF group urges accounting changes to reflect rail modernization efforts

26 Mar 2025
Topic — Proposed amendments to simplify and reduce costs of EU Taxonomy sustainability reporting.
Message — SNCF requests renaming 'partial alignment' to 'transitional activities' to prevent investor confusion. They oppose financial thresholds that might hide small but ecologically significant activities. They also want accounting rules changed to include specific rail investments.123
Why — Revised accounting rules would properly reflect their significant investments in modernizing electrified trains.4
Impact — Environmental goals are at risk if reporting thresholds hide activities with high impact.5
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Response to Technical specification for interoperability relating to the telematics subsystem of the rail system

13 Mar 2025

The position of SNCF on the Telematics TSI EN07 is following. ERA published the TAF/TAP recommendations in January 2022 after 4 years of work by the ERA TAF and TAP working parties according to the TSI revision mandate (decision 2017/1474) and traceability of the modifications in the ERA CCM Revision tool. As first output an intermediate revision was included by amendment in TAF TSI in 2021. Nevertheless DG MOVE did not support the recommendations. Instead to grant an updated mandate to ERA, DG MOVE took over a large redrafting of the TAF/TAP TSI from mid-2023 with a completely new approach and without mandate. Since 2 years and after 7 versions of the Telematics TSI, SNCF does not see any significant improvements with the new unjustified measures in particular: Change of nature of the TSI which is now more about making rail data public instead of exchanging or make available the information between the stakeholders; Very general wording and lack in details that lead to various interpretations and misunderstanding on how to implement; New structure of Act and Annex interconnected together, different of the usual and clear TSI structure, leading to difficulty to understand the requirements; From one version to the next, large modifications without concertation or new requirements not mature or even abolishment of requirements already implemented in TAF/TAP systems; Additional constraints put on the rail sector compared to all other modes (as freight on road); These issues concern all processes: RU/IM exchanges, freight services, retail and passenger services. That is due to the redrafting process of the TSI since mid-2023 where article 5 of the Interoperability Directive (drafting, adoption and review of TSIs) is no longer respected: ERAs role in drafting the content of the TSI has been taken over by DG MOVE; Modification of the scope without mandate; New or modified requirements without traceability via CRs and without justification of added value; No comprehensive discussion and study by the ERA working party with the experts of the sector and MSs; instead the EC Expert Group is used to discuss technical content that is not the aim (almost 10 EC EGs since mid-2023, that was never the case for other TSIs); No full impact assessment or cost-benefit analysis yet necessary considering the numerous modifications (the advisory note on impact was launched only very late in November 2024 that doesnt permit a correct assessment before vote planned in June 2025); No draft of a realistic and sustainable implementation plan, no clear financing and resources estimation; Very late delivery of the Technical Documents yet necessary to assess the specifications to implement and unclear approval process of the TDs for the vote planned in June 2025; Implementation deadlines planned to be defined in the RISC of June 2025 without involvement of the sector in charge to implement. Implementing this TSI EN07, for the requirements beyond the ERA TAF/TAP recommendations of 2022, is for the moment very difficult for SNCF based on the current wording which is very general and interpretable in different manners, without common understanding of what has to be deployed, without justification of benefit, without realistic and sustainable implementation plan and without clear financing estimation and resources. The redrafting in a more understandable and realistic manner, including shifting the non-mature requirements as open points, is necessary to allow a cost-efficient and business-efficient implementation. It is not too late to establish a common writing team between EC, ERA, MSs and sector to achieve this redrafting with the criteria of openness, consensus and transparency. The attachments describe in more details some main issues and proposals (list not exhaustive).
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Meeting with Kai Tegethoff (Member of the European Parliament, Shadow rapporteur)

13 Mar 2025 · Passenger rights in the context of multimodal journeys

Response to Evaluation of the Public Procurement Directives

7 Mar 2025

Vous trouverez ci-joint les orientations et propositions du groupe SNCF sur la refonte des directives marchés publics.
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Meeting with Apostolos Tzitzikostas (Commissioner) and Deutsche Bahn AG and

26 Feb 2025 · Intermodal Transport

SNCF Urges Lead Exemption Extension for Railway Maintenance

10 Feb 2025
Topic — EU consultation on hazardous substance restrictions for lead in high-temperature solders.
Message — SNCF warns that restricting lead exemptions would severely disrupt maintenance and the availability of railway equipment. They argue that lead-free processes use temperatures too high for legacy electronic components to withstand.12
Why — This would help SNCF avoid high financial costs and equipment obsolescence caused by forced redesigns.3
Impact — Railway passengers could face service disruptions and risks to essential safety functions.4
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Meeting with Kosma Złotowski (Member of the European Parliament, Shadow rapporteur)

30 Jan 2025 · Multimodal journeys

Meeting with Sandro Santamato (Head of Unit Mobility and Transport)

28 Jan 2025 · Single European Railway Area

Meeting with Ana Vasconcelos (Member of the European Parliament, Shadow rapporteur)

22 Jan 2025 · Count Emissions EU

Meeting with Valérie Hayer (Member of the European Parliament) and Airbus and

21 Jan 2025 · Politique économique européenne

Meeting with Laurence Farreng (Member of the European Parliament) and Airbus and

21 Jan 2025 · Défis européens des grandes entreprises françaises

Meeting with Herald Ruijters (Deputy Director-General Mobility and Transport) and

20 Jan 2025 · Exchange of views on Military Mobility

Response to Amendment of LOC&PAS and WAG Technical Specifications for rail Interoperability and of register of rail infrastructure

20 Dec 2024

Le groupe SNCF soutient cette initiative de la Commission européenne qui permet de faciliter la constitution de convois de transport de matériels militaires avec des voitures daccompagnement de personnels. Il est important de noter que la spécificité de ces convois (voitures de transport de passagers sans liaison de communication filaire avec le conducteur et sans surveillance des portes) implique une limitation à lemport dune catégorie de personnels encadrés et éventuellement formés aux modes opératoires à mettre en œuvre pour communiquer si besoin avec le conducteur. Il est donc primordial que cette pratique soit limitée aux convois à usage militaire ou assimilé.
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Response to Digitalisation of identity cards issued to EU citizens

20 Dec 2024

Please find attached the position of the SNCF group.
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Meeting with François Kalfon (Member of the European Parliament)

17 Dec 2024 · Priorités Transports 2024-2029

Meeting with Merja Kyllönen (Member of the European Parliament)

17 Dec 2024 · Count emission/ multimodal passenger rights

Meeting with Andreas Schieder (Member of the European Parliament)

17 Dec 2024 · Exchange of views

Meeting with Vicent Marzà Ibáñez (Member of the European Parliament)

29 Oct 2024 · LNPCA (new line Provence Côte d’Azur)

Meeting with Pierre Pimpie (Member of the European Parliament)

2 Oct 2024 · Enjeux clés des politiques de transport européennes, fiscalité environnementale

Meeting with Valérie Devaux (Member of the European Parliament)

2 Oct 2024 · enjeux ferroviaires européens

Meeting with Pascale Piera (Member of the European Parliament)

1 Oct 2024 · Prise de contact

Response to Ex-post evaluation of the Connecting Europe Facility 2014-2020

24 Sept 2024

Veuillez trouver la contribution du Groupe SNCF à la consultation en pièce jointe. Alors que l'UE a inscrit dans ses principaux objectifs la réduction des émissions de gaz à effet de serre de 55 % d'ici à 2030 et des émissions des transports de 90 % d'ici à 2050, il devient de plus en plus urgent daugmenter la part modale des transports les plus durables et de soutenir le développement du mode ferroviaire. Mode de transport le plus durable, le ferroviaire a le potentiel dapporter une contribution importante à la décarbonation des transports, dont les émissions continuent d'augmenter. Le maintien et le renforcement dune ambition européenne est donc nécessaire en ce qui concerne le financement des chemins de fer.
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Response to Interim evaluation of the Connecting Europe Facility 2021-2027

24 Sept 2024

Veuillez trouver la contribution complète du Groupe SNCF à la consultation en pièce jointe. Alors que l'UE a inscrit dans ses principaux objectifs la réduction des émissions de gaz à effet de serre de 55 % d'ici à 2030 et des émissions des transports de 90 % d'ici à 2050, il devient de plus en plus urgent daugmenter la part modale des transports les plus durables et de soutenir le développement du mode ferroviaire. Mode de transport le plus durable, le ferroviaire a le potentiel dapporter une contribution importante à la décarbonation des transports, dont les émissions continuent d'augmenter. Le maintien et le renforcement dune ambition européenne est donc nécessaire en ce qui concerne le financement des chemins de fer.
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Meeting with François Kalfon (Member of the European Parliament)

24 Sept 2024 · Transport ferroviaire

Meeting with Laurent Castillo (Member of the European Parliament)

12 Sept 2024 · Politique ferroviaire de l'UE

Meeting with Arash Saeidi (Member of the European Parliament)

11 Sept 2024 · présentation des grands enjeux et propositions pour la nouvelle législature de la SNCF

Meeting with Gerassimos Thomas (Director-General Taxation and Customs Union) and Airbus and

9 Sept 2024 · Physical meeting - Exchange on EU Taxation and Customs policy priorities

Meeting with François Kalfon (Member of the European Parliament)

17 Jul 2024 · Priorités Transport 2024-2029

Response to Block exemption regulation on the application of Articles 93 and 108 of the Treaty to State aid for the land transport sector

3 Apr 2024

Le groupe SNCF se félicite de la décision de la Commission dadopter prochainement un règlement dexemption par catégorie pour le transport terrestre, qui vise à simplifier lattribution daides afin de promouvoir et de soutenir les modes de transport moins polluants, en particulier le ferroviaire. Plusieurs régimes daide qui ont démontré leur efficacité devraient bénéficier de cette exemption et notamment les aides au transport de marchandises. Vous trouverez en pièce-jointe le détail de notre réponse à la consultation.
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Response to Recommendation to promote the development of innovative forms of solar energy deployment

2 Apr 2024

Augmenter la part des énergies renouvelables dans la consommation délectricité est une priorité du groupe SNCF, qui sest fixé lobjectif datteindre une autonomie énergétique verte en 2050. Le groupe SNCF salue linitiative de la Commission dadresser des orientations aux Etats membres en vue de promouvoir les formes innovantes de déploiement de lénergie solaire. Cela permettra un échange des bonnes pratiques à léchelle européenne qui pourra utilement guider la mise en œuvre de la stratégie de lUE pour lénergie solaire et de la directive 2023/2413 sur les énergies renouvelables par les Etats membres. Le déploiement des énergies renouvelables sest imposé comme un enjeu de souveraineté énergétique, dans le contexte actuel dinflation et de tensions géopolitiques. Le groupe SNCF se félicite de ladoption de la stratégie de lUE pour lénergie solaire et de la directive 2023/2413 qui constitue une réponse adaptée. Cependant, le groupe SNCF appelle à la mise en œuvre rapide de ces objectifs. Celle-ci devrait permettre de lever les obstacles entravant le déploiement de lénergie solaire. En ce sens, le groupe SNCF se félicite que la stratégie de lUE pour lénergie solaire identifie déjà le photovoltaïque intégré aux infrastructures de transport et aux bâtiments en tant que formes innovantes pour le déploiement de lénergie solaire. Les projets représentant le moins de risque dutilisation concurrente des sols devraient en effet bénéficier au plus vite dallègement de procédures administratives via la recommandation de la Commission à venir. Cela permettrait une concrétisation rapide des projets innovants, ce qui contribuerait à lindépendance de lUE vis-à-vis des énergies fossiles et à atteindre la cible de 42,5% dénergie renouvelable en Europe en 2030. Dès lors, le groupe SNCF souhaite attirer lattention de la Commission sur les panneaux photovoltaïques intégrés aux infrastructures ferroviaires, aux délaissés ferroviaires et aux toits des bâtiments. Ces zones artificialisées pourraient utilement bénéficier des procédures simplifiées pour produire plus rapidement les effets positifs économiques et environnementaux attendus de ce type de projets, sans exercer de contrainte supplémentaire sur lutilisation des sols. Le projet de SNCF Renouvelables contribuera à renforcer la souveraineté énergétique de la France et de lEurope. Comptant parmi les premiers propriétaires fonciers de France, le groupe SNCF dispose de nombreux espaces pouvant servir à installer des centrales solaires. Le patrimoine foncier comprend ainsi :12 millions de m2 de bâti sur le territoire ; plus de 100 000 hectares de terrains dont 80 000 utilisés pour lactivité ferroviaire. Une telle surface représente un potentiel dautant plus intéressant que la stratégie de lUE pour lénergie solaire souligne que « les voies ferrées présentent un potentiel inexploité pour le déploiement de lénergie solaire ». Comme le souligne le considérant 42 de la directive 2023/2413, équiper de panneaux solaires des zones déjà artificialisées telles que les infrastructures ferroviaires, les toits ou encore les aires de stationnement, ne présente pas de risques environnementaux ou liés à des utilisations concurrentes de lespace. Enfin, désigner les infrastructures ferroviaires dans les orientations et la recommandation de la Commission permettra de : (1) poursuivre lélectrification du réseau ferroviaire (à ce jour, 60% du réseau et 80% des circulations) par la fourniture délectricité dorigine renouvelable (2) alimenter les bornes de recharge des véhicules électriques installées sur les parkings des gares SNCF (3) accroitre la performance énergétique des 3000 gares et bâtiments du groupe. Le Groupe SNCF demande ainsi à la Commission de recommander aux Etats membres de désigner les infrastructures ferroviaires comme une forme innovante de déploiement de lénergie solaire.
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SNCF urges clarity on EU multimodal passenger rights rules

13 Mar 2024
Topic — The European Commission is proposing new regulations for multimodal passenger transport rights.
Message — SNCF seeks to exclude urban transport and non-reserved regional trains from the new rules. They demand that ticket vendors obtain operator consent for multimodal contracts to ensure legal certainty. They also propose a 180-minute delay threshold for reimbursement to match aviation standards.123
Why — This would protect SNCF from financial liability for uncoordinated connections and lower administrative costs.4
Impact — Travelers face stricter delay requirements and independent ticket vendors lose the freedom to bundle services.5
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Response to Guidance to facilitate the designation of renewables acceleration areas

23 Feb 2024

Le groupe SNCF salue linitiative de la Commission dadresser des orientations aux Etats membres pour ladoption de leurs plans nationaux désignant les zones daccélération des énergies renouvelables. La consultation permettra de compiler les bonnes pratiques au niveau européen afin dorienter efficacement la mise œuvre de la directive 2023/2413. Le groupe SNCF appelle à ladoption rapide de ces plans nationaux. Ces plans devraient se fonder sur les bonnes pratiques identifiées par le secteur comme présentant le plus fort potentiel énergétique et le plus faible impact environnemental. Les projets en zones artificialisées devraient en effet bénéficier au plus vite de lallègement des procédures administratives prévues par la directive, pour contribuer à atteindre la cible de 42,5% dénergie renouvelable en Europe en 2030. Le Groupe souhaite prendre toute sa part à leffort français et européen daccélération des énergies renouvelables et pour ce faire, pourrait bénéficier des allègements administratifs prévus par la directive pour mettre en œuvre son projet déquiper son foncier artificialisé en panneaux solaires. Comptant parmi les premiers propriétaires fonciers de France, le groupe SNCF dispose de nombreux espaces pouvant servir à installer des centrales solaires. Le patrimoine foncier comprend ainsi 12 millions de m2 de bâti en France et plus de 100 000 hectares de terrains dont 80 000 utilisés pour lactivité ferroviaire. Comme le souligne le considérant 42 de la directive 2023/2413, équiper de panneaux solaires des zones artificialisées telles que les infrastructures ferroviaires, les toits ou encore les aires de stationnement, ne présente pas de risque environnemental ou lié à des utilisations concurrentes de lespace. Il semble donc logique que cette recommandation implicite dans la directive se traduise dans les plans nationaux. Ces projets dinstallation devraient donc bénéficier de procédures doctroi de permis plus courtes et dune exemption de lévaluation de limpact environnemental. Désigner les infrastructures ferroviaires et leurs environs immédiats comme zones daccélération permettrait dobtenir des effets positifs sur lélectrification des transports, identifiée comme une priorité en vue de réduire les émissions de CO2 par le comité scientifique consultatif européen, et la performance énergétique des bâtiments. Lélectricité produite par ces futurs équipements solaires permettra de : (1) poursuivre lélectrification du réseau ferroviaire (à ce jour, 60% du réseau et 80% des circulations) par la fourniture délectricité dorigine renouvelable ; (2) alimenter les bornes de recharge des véhicules électriques installées sur les vastes parkings des gares SNCF ; et (3) accroitre la performance énergétique des 3000 gares et bâtiments du groupe. La production délectricité renouvelable sur le foncier de lentreprise augmentera la visibilité sur les prix de lénergie. Et le retour dun prix maitrisé de lélectricité favorisera le report modal vers le rail, mode le moins émetteur de GES. Le projet de production délectricité photovoltaïque du groupe SNCF pourrait tirer un plus grand profit de cette désignation comme zones daccélération car la directive prévoit un octroi de permis en 3 mois pour les projets solaires contre 12 mois pour les autres projets. Lengagement du Groupe de bâtir son projet autour de lindustrie européenne, des compétences locales et des collectivités locales, renforce également son impact positif pour la souveraineté énergétique de lEurope. Pour toutes ces raisons, le groupe SNCF appelle la Commission à recommander aux Etats membres de désigner les infrastructures ferroviaires et leurs environs immédiats comme zones daccélération, afin den exploiter le fort potentiel en matière de transition écologique et de souveraineté énergétique.
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Meeting with Brice Hortefeux (Member of the European Parliament)

1 Feb 2024 · Enjeux ferroviaires du dossier

Meeting with Kateřina Konečná (Member of the European Parliament, Shadow rapporteur)

29 Jan 2024 · Weights and Dimensions Directive

Meeting with Tilly Metz (Member of the European Parliament, Rapporteur)

29 Jan 2024 · Rail capacity proposal

Meeting with Tilly Metz (Member of the European Parliament, Rapporteur) and Community of European Railway and Infrastructure Companies and SNCF Connect

28 Nov 2023 · Rail Capacity proposal

Meeting with Kurt Vandenberghe (Director-General Climate Action) and Airbus and

24 Oct 2023 · Cercle des Grandes Entreprises françaises

Meeting with Ciarán Cuffe (Member of the European Parliament, Shadow rapporteur) and Transport and Environment (European Federation for Transport and Environment) and

24 Oct 2023 · Weights and dimensions directive

Meeting with Rovana Plumb (Member of the European Parliament, Shadow rapporteur)

23 Oct 2023 · Count Emissions EU

Meeting with Pascal Canfin (Member of the European Parliament) and SNCF Connect

20 Oct 2023 · Green Deal

Meeting with Valérie Hayer (Member of the European Parliament) and Schneider Electric and

17 Oct 2023 · Politique industrielle européenne

Meeting with Laurence Farreng (Member of the European Parliament) and Schneider Electric and

17 Oct 2023 · Rencontres avec les grandes entreprises françaises

Response to Count your transport emissions: CountEmissions EU

12 Oct 2023

The SNCF Group supports the CountEmissionsEU initiative, which aims to encourage people and companies to use sustainable modes of transport. This initiative is a first step towards achieving a level playing field across the EU between transport modes. However, if the Commission's proposal goes in the right direction, it is not strong enough to generate a real change in the behavior of travelers and shippers. To reach its full potential in providing comprehensive and objective information to customers as widely as possible, CountEmissionsEU must not just be a voluntary tool, but must become mandatory for all modes of transport, including private cars. In that sense, digital platforms offering transport services should be obliged to disclose the GHG emissions of all modes of transport proposed for the journeys they offer - which can be a way to cover private cars. Furthermore, the "well-to-wheel" approach is insufficient to properly represent the impact of transport and needs to be extended to vehicle manufacturing and maintenance. Last but not least, it is essential to make sure that the information provided by concerned entities is provided in a harmonised, simple form that can be compiled even if it comes from different carriers. This is to allow users of transport services to easily measure the environmental impact of their journeys. While transport is the only sector where GHG emissions have increased over the last three decades, it is urgent to change behavior by making available to travelers and shippers all the information relating to the environmental impact of their journeys and goods transports. In this regard, this piece of legislation has the potential to mainstream and raise awareness on sustainability information across the EU. Co-legislators must therefore seize this opportunity to make CountEmissionsEU an effective lever for modal shift, and thus reduce GHG emissions from one of the most polluting sectors. The full SNCF Group's position is attached and sets out several recommendations.
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Meeting with Leila Chaibi (Member of the European Parliament)

10 Oct 2023 · Réunion sur le paquet verdissement du fret

Meeting with Stéphane Séjourné (Member of the European Parliament)

10 Oct 2023 · Sujets français et européens (équipe)

Meeting with Dominique Riquet (Member of the European Parliament, Rapporteur)

26 Sept 2023 · Politique des transports

Response to Mid-term evaluation of the ERDF, the CF and the JTF 2021-2027

22 Sept 2023

The SNCF Group welcomes the opportunity offered by the Commission to give a feedback on the Cohesion policy funds. As a world leader in passenger and freight transport services closely working with regions, the SNCF Group has benefited from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) for some of its projects and therefore wishes to express its view on this fund. Since the EU aims at cutting GHG emissions by 55% by 2030 and transport emissions by 90% by 2050, supporting railways is becoming increasingly urgent. Being the most sustainable transport mode, railways have the potential to deeply decarbonise the transport sector whose emissions continue to increase. However, transport is not identified as a priority in the 2021-2027 ERDF regulation, hence a low support for railways from the regions. Given the needs and challenges for rail transport at the regional level, such as developing local lines and connecting less dense and isolated areas, we believe that mobility should be identified as a priority under the ERDF. Many topics must be highlighted: regeneration and modernisation of infrastructure, low-carbon rolling stock, freight development (renovating shunting yards, creating new multimodal platforms, ensuring the continuity of small freight lines), etc. In addition, the ERDF should better consider the central and enabling role of railway stations. They are a key part in achieving an intermodal and seamless transport network by offering essential services for multimodality, by promoting interconnections between sustainable modes of transport and therefore having a positive impact both for the environment and for passengers in terms of travel times and accessibility. Stations-related projects also enable to increase and fluidify rail traffic and remove bottlenecks. They also allow to improve the resilience of infrastructure to climate change. Financing of multimodal hubs and of stations buildings should be made eligible. This is key to enable more citizens to benefit from the transport system and to allow them to reach more quickly their destination while using decarbonised modes. On the other hand, the ERDF project management is lengthy and extensive, what often leads to demotivation of the teams leading the projects. Moreover, managing ERDF as well as INTERREG funding is too complex. It would therefore be helpful for applicants to streamline and alleviate the administrative processes. More specifically, regarding labour costs reporting under ERDF projects, it would be helpful to be able to use the simplified cost method. Using simplified labour costs rather than precise individual salaries would indeed be more practical. A higher ambition is urgently needed when it comes to funding railways, where the ERDF has a great role to play as a powerful catalyst for local projects.
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Response to Revision of the specifications for EU-wide Multimodal Travel Information Services (Delegated Regulation 2017/1926)

28 Jun 2023

De manière générale, le Groupe SNCF accueille positivement cette initiative. Le groupe est enclin à avancer sur les questions de partage de données, en ce quil est moteur dinnovation et de croissance. Le groupe promeut le plus grand partage de données possible, dans la limite de la protection des données commercialement sensibles dans un contexte douverture à la concurrence. Dans le détail ensuite, la formulation de certaines dispositions pourrait soulever des difficultés dans la pratique. Pour plus d'informations, veuillez trouver en pièce jointe la position détaillée du Groupe SNCF.
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Meeting with Fabienne Keller (Member of the European Parliament)

5 Jun 2023 · Rencontre avec la direction de de SNCF Rail Logistics Europe sur le transport ferroviaire.

SNCF seeks accounting changes and delay for taxonomy reporting

3 May 2023
Topic — This initiative defines criteria for sustainable activities to guide investment towards environmental goals.
Message — SNCF requests including specific financial assets in capital expenditure to accurately reflect fleet modernization efforts. They also call for a reporting delay to manage the increased workload.12
Why — This would remove accounting biases that hide their direct industrial investments in sustainable technology.3
Impact — Financial transparency would suffer as delays and category changes hinder tracking environmental performance.4
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Response to Common form for reimbursement and compensation requests of rail passengers

6 Apr 2023

Le groupe SNCF est un leader mondial des services de transport de voyageurs et de marchandises. Sa raison dêtre est « dagir pour une société en mouvement, solidaire et durable ». Le groupe compte 270 000 collaborateurs dans 120 pays et un chiffre d'affaires de 41,4 milliards d'euros en 2022, dont un tiers à l'international. Le groupe SNCF est organisé autour d'une société mère unique et regroupe SNCF Réseau (gestion et exploitation du réseau ferré français), SNCF Gares & Connexions (gestion et développement des gares), Rail Logistics Europe (transport ferroviaire de marchandises et logistique), SNCF Voyageurs (transports publics régionaux et interurbains, grande vitesse ferroviaire en France et en Europe), Geodis (logistique en France et dans 120 pays) et Keolis (transports collectifs et transports publics en Europe et dans le monde). Lentrée en vigueur le 7 juin 2023 du nouveau règlement sur les droits et devoirs des passagers ferroviaires va fortement impacter lactivité de SNCF Voyageurs. La consultation en cours sur la proposition de formulaire standard pour les demandes de remboursement et de compensation est donc bienvenue. Tout dabord, il est important que la proposition de règlement dexécution clarifie la possibilité pour les opérateurs dutiliser, en parallèle du formulaire commun mis à disposition, leur propre formulaire sous format électronique et/ou papier avec des entrées éventuellement spécifiques en plus ou en moins par rapport au formulaire standard (en fonction des informations dont le transporteur dispose déjà sur son client et son parcours). Cela permettra aux entreprises ferroviaires dadapter les entrées en fonction de leurs spécificités de fonctionnement tout en garantissant le plein respect des droits des passagers garantis par le PRR. Il est également nécessaire que le considérant 6 du projet de règlement soit reformulé afin de clarifier le fait quun passager ne peut demander un remboursement et une compensation pour le même voyage. Concernant le formulaire en lui-même (Annexe), il serait utile dintégrer une mention précisant aux voyageurs quils disposent dun délai de trois mois à compter du jour du voyage pour renvoyer la demande de remboursement ou compensation. Deuxièmement, le formulaire commun, bien que mis à disposition par la Commission dans toutes les langues officielles de lUE, devrait être retourné dans lune des langues officielles du pays dopération de lopérateur ou du distributeur. A contrario, la réception de formulaires dans différentes langues désorganiserait les services clients et entrainerait des frais élevés de traduction. Enfin, le formulaire devrait faire une référence claire à larticle 18.3 du règlement 2021/782 car en létat, le formulaire laisse en question ouverte la demande dun remboursement des frais occasionnés par lutilisation de transporteurs alternatifs, laissant penser que cest un droit systématique en cas de perturbation. Or ce droit est strictement encadré par le règlement 2021/782.
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Meeting with Isabel García Muñoz (Member of the European Parliament, Shadow rapporteur)

14 Feb 2023 · TEN-T Revision

Meeting with Barbara Thaler (Member of the European Parliament, Rapporteur)

14 Feb 2023 · TEN-T

Meeting with Adina-Ioana Vălean (Commissioner)

1 Feb 2023 · Meeting to discuss rail

Response to Revision of technical specification for interoperability relating to the ‘control-command and signalling’ subsystems

27 Jan 2023

The goals of these texts are very ambitious, and we share them. However, to ensure an efficient, swift and sustainable deployment of ERTMS, it is important that the new requirements have a pragmatic design: it is not relevant to impose long-term requirements on trains with a residual life of 10 or 15 years because it increases the deployment costs with no benefits. We insist that tailor-made solutions can be allowed, and that the most stringent requirements be reserved only for newly developed trains. This position should guide the spirit of the in-depth discussions to be held with the sector in expert groups to be organized before a vote on this text can be considered. More specifically, these principles justify the following modification request such as: - At first, this TSI includes a safety blocking point which shall be tackled before publication : actual ATO subset 125 can lead to derailment if the clause §5.1.1.2 of Subset 125 is not modified (see comment on appendix A, table A2 index 84); - As the main European objective is to equip train with ETCS, we consider that it has to be done as cost efficiently as possible whatever solution is used. Bi-standard shall not be excluded from fundings - the cost effectiveness of mandatory error correction needs to be taken into account, especially when they need hardware modification, in particular when the error has no consequences inside the area of use of vehicles getting old; - Level R needs to be postponed to have enough time to reassess the burden it creates, as explained by OPE experts; - only after proven sufficiently mature (full testing and validation included), and their impact assessed according to the change control management process, innovative solutions can be included in future revision(s) of the Technical Specification for Interoperability and become mandatory; - the ability of RINF IT tool has to be reassessed before it becomes mandatory to use it to issue alerts on changes made in the database ; - it is relevant to start Single set of specification with SV 3.0 (2025 beyond) - The existing sets of specifications #2 and #3 shall be retained in the CCS TSI 2023, and a set #4 (SV 2.2) created, and nothing more, until SV3.0 brings significant improvements.
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Response to Revision of seven Technical Specifications for rail Interoperability: LOC&PAS, WAG, INF, ENE, NOI, PRM and RINF

27 Jan 2023

SNCF supports the European ambition for interoperability. In this respect, we are attentive to the fact that the European regulations allow for sustainable, ecological and financially acceptable harmonisation, based on finalised and shared technical rules. In our opinion, the current consultation does not at this stage provide sufficient guarantees regarding these objectives. Without being exhaustive, several issues do not, in our view, allow the texts to be finalised. First, the responses to this consultation have not yet been completed and the texts submitted to the vote have already been published, which raises questions about the process as a whole and the desire to make improvements as the work progresses. The documents circulated do not include the major aspects of the expert groups convened by the Commission. Nor do they consider the responses to documents circulated previously at very short notice and containing major last-minute changes to proposals that had been worked on at length by the ERA and the sector over a period of three years. The documents presented (for the consultation and for the RISC) refer to various annexed documents that are not available, making it impossible to express oneself validly. Several specifications are not available (see, among others, the response to the CCS consultation, which raises many points to be worked on). The TSIs are all interfacing with each other, but the vote is currently planned in three phases (TAF and TAP in June, CCS and OPE in March, the others in February). Given the existing links, it is imperative that the texts (possibly excluding TAF and TAP) are voted on together to avoid any subsequent consequences. Amongst the issues to be noted, the RINF is scheduled to become a dynamic tool in the latest amendments. This last-minute change is characteristic of the finalisation of the process, as such a modification has a major impact on the RINF product itself, but also on the procedures applied in operation, training, etc. Such a fundamental change cannot be validly evaluated at the end of the process. Finally, the cost of the changes - difficult to estimate - will be very high and in many cases without any real benefit, thus to the detriment of actual needs. For all these reasons, we recommend that the grouped vote on the TSIs should only take place at the end of additional work allowing an ambitious consensus to be reached in the service of the railways and decarbonisation in Europe.
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SNCF Urges Rail-Specific Cybersecurity Rules and Extended Product Support

23 Jan 2023
Topic — The Cyber Resilience Act sets cybersecurity requirements for digital products and services.
Message — SNCF requests that cybersecurity rules align with rail-specific legislation and extend vulnerability handling beyond the proposed five-year limit. They argue that component failures should not automatically trigger non-conformity for entire railway systems. Furthermore, definitions for critical products require clarification to ensure they are applied consistently.123
Why — Rail operators would ensure long-term security support for infrastructure and maintain operational flexibility.45
Impact — Manufacturers may face increased costs from extended maintenance obligations and stricter product categorization.67
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Response to European Disability Card

21 Dec 2022

Linstauration dune carte européenne dinvalidité reconnaissant le statut de PMR entre les pays sans engendrer dharmonisation de la définition semble être une bonne initiative permettant aux PMR de jouir de nombreux bénéfices et de ne pas subir de discriminations en dehors de leur pays dorigine. Aujourdhui, le problème majeur concerne les modalités de délivrance de cette carte. Une carte européenne ne devrait pas remettre en question lexistence de différentes cartes nationales. De la même manière, des précisions de compatibilité devront être nécessaires : par exemple, la carte française définit plusieurs niveaux de handicap (carte mobilité inclusion priorité, stationnement, invalidité, invalidité avec mention besoin daccompagnement, invalidité avec mention cécité), la carte européenne devra être compatible et il devra être possible de savoir à laquelle des cartes nationales elle correspond car les droits correspondants sont variables. En ce qui concerne les entreprises ferroviaires, deux questions se posent : La première est liée à la compensation. Ce sont aux Etats membres dendosser la responsabilité doffrir les mêmes services à des conditions identiques aux PMR non-nationaux également. Les EF ne devraient pas avoir à subir de coûts supplémentaires en étendant leurs conditions préférentielles à des non-nationaux dont le statut est reconnu. La deuxième est liée au transport de substitution. Certaines entreprises ferroviaires ou autorités organisatrices de transport ou de mobilité proposent des transports de substitution, et les limitent à certains types de carte. La correspondance entre la carte européenne dinvalidité et les cartes nationales doit aussi être établie. Linformation des passagers concernés sur leurs droits est aussi un élément important. Les modalités de communication sont à prendre en compte (est-ce une information sur le site internet uniquement, etc). Enfin, il est nécessaire quun mécanisme de vérification à format unique pour vérifier des droits à lachat ou lors de la réservation dun transport de substitution soit garanti. Par exemple, par la mise en place dun numéro interopérable permettant de vérifier que le passager a bien un statut actif, et de vérifier à quel type de carte nationale correspond la carte européenne.
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Response to Revision of Operation Technical Specification for rail Interoperability

8 Dec 2022

First, SNCF wants to underline the excellent work which has been undertaken under the supervision of ERA during the revision process. With the implication of the Policy Officers, as well in the Topical Working Groups than in the ERA OPE WG, we had the opportunity to push our topics and defend our points, in a very collaborative manner. We have been slightly disappointed when we received the first non-papers in June 2022, because the Commission had introduced new topics which had not been discussed before, with a very little timeline to react on. At this point, we would like to express our regrets that some of these new topics had not been introduced in a sooner part of the revision process, which could have given us (and the whole sector) the necessary time to have a fruitful discussion and to try to come up with constructive proposals. Nevertheless, this important work has finally taken place during the two Expert Group meetings in autumn, but we continue to think it should have been more efficient if the Commission proposals had come sooner in the process. Finally, through our Member State representative, we have been able to send, before RISC 96, some important remarks; regarding the RISC internal minutes provided by our Member State, some of our concerns have been taken in account by the Commission, and we appreciate that the justifications and explanations we shared have been partially taken in account. A new version has been issued by the Commission, we read it carefully and it appears that some of the points have been modified accordingly to the discussions in RISC. But, as the text we are asked to comment through this consultation is the text available before the RISC meeting, the annexed table we join to this consultation is in line with this very text; we just modify it by adding a remark taking in account during RISC 96 when the topic seems to be accepted by the Commission. Some topics are still for us painful ones - 4.2.2.5.1 (b) & 4.2.2.6.2 (1) missing RINF information to be delivered within 15 days - 4.8.1 emergency situations and RINF (remarks 5, 6, and 7) - Appendix D1 train detection Systems specific to the French Network for currently running trains (remark 8) - Level R Concerns about a useless modification (remark 15) - 4.2.2.5.1 (D), proposal for a modification of the first bullet point They are highlighted in yellow in the attached table; we ask the Commission to have a deep look to these remaining points. Obviously, we are available for a bilateral discussion on this points to clarify our concerns.
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Response to Fitness check of how the Polluter Pays Principle is applied to the environment

7 Dec 2022

The SNCF group welcomes the initiative of the Commission to elaborate recommendations on how to better implement the polluter-pays principle. The latter being a cornerstone of the EU environmental and climate policy, it is key to foster its extensive application as well as mainstream it in the EU legislation especially in the transport sector which is responsible for around 30% of all the GHG emissions emitted in the EU. The SNCF group indeed believes that a greater consideration of the polluter-pays principle through a full internalisation of all key external costs identified by the Commission 2019 Handbook (climate change, air pollution, accidents, congestion, noise) across all transport modes would lead to better and informed consumer choices and would allow each mode to reflect the actual costs it causes to society. As the 2019 Handbook shows, rail complies with the polluter-pays principle better than any other motorised transport mode, both for passengers and freight. With only 1% of transport GHG emissions, rail is the greenest mode of mass transport: a high-speed train trip emits 50 times less CO than the same trip by car and 80 times less than the same trip by plane. A first step must be taken in the framework of several proposals from the Fit for 55 package still in the legislative process: - Firstly, the ongoing revision of the Energy Taxation Directive must be the opportunity to tackle GHG emissions by promoting alternative fuels such as hydrogen, instead of encouraging fossil fuel consumption with tax exemptions at the expense of rail and public transport. - Secondly, the inclusion of road transport in the EU ETS is essential to reach the objectives of the Sustainable and Smart mobility Strategy to reduce by 90% the CO2 emissions from the transport sector by 2050. It will ensure the application of the polluter-pays principle for climate change through a price signal sent by ETS II that will reflect better the impacts of each transport mode. - Similarly in the revision of ETS I free allowances for aviation should be abolished in order to better internalise external costs and make rail more competitive, particularly on short and medium distances. Internalising external costs and establishing fiscal and social equity between transport modes is a vital lever to trigger modal shift and can strongly contribute to meet the objectives of the Green Deal. It is therefore fundamental that the polluter-pays principle is taken into account by these initiatives which aim at structurally reorienting EU citizens habits towards more sustainable practices. However, additional steps must be taken to fully internalise other external costs.
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Response to Creation of the Common European Mobility Data Space

7 Dec 2022

Le groupe SNCF accueille favorablement, linitiative de la Commission européenne sur la création despaces européens de données sur la mobilité. Cette dernière permettra certainement de faciliter léchange de données entre acteurs et devrait viser à accroître les incitations pour les entreprises tout en établissant un cadre sûr propice à léchange de données en toute confiance. Reconnaissant que la donnée est un élément essentiel pour accélérer la digitalisation et permettre la décarbonation du secteur des transports, son échange doit ainsi être réglementé avec précaution. En effet, plusieurs obstacles subsistent pour un échange fluide des données, à savoir: + Un manque de confiance entre les acteurs sur la finalité de lutilisation des données et leur réutilisation + Le manque dincitations économiques et réglementaires pour accroître ces échanges + La présence dobstacles techniques tels que linteropérabilité, la souveraineté et la fiabilité + Linsuffisance de mécanismes juridiques de protection des intérêts commerciaux et des enjeux de compétitivité, ainsi que lincertitude juridique autour de la gouvernance, de laccès aux données et de leur utilisation. + Un manque de compréhension des coûts liés à création et à la mise à disposition de la donnée, ainsi que son stockage et sa distribution. + Le risque dappropriation à des fins malveillantes par des parties tierces, donnant lieu à des problèmes potentiels de protection des consommateurs et de responsabilité. Si la génération dun tel espace commun génère sans aucun doute des avantages, un certain nombre de défis subsistent et doivent être relevés afin de garantir un échange de données sûr, fiable et au bénéfice de chacun. Messages clés: Lécosystème de la mobilité est particulièrement complexe, comprenant un large éventail dinitiatives avec leur propre fonctionnement. De ce fait, toute initiative européenne devra se baser sur les initiatives existantes et ne pas introduire de cadre différent trop complexe qui briderait de nouvelles innovations. Les entreprises devraient être incitées à échanger leurs données de manière volontaire et contractuelle afin de protéger leurs intérêts. Elles ne devraient ainsi pas avoir à supporter de coûts supplémentaires y compris pour l'utilisation de l'espace de données lui-même. La protection du secret des affaires et de propriété intellectuelle est vitale pour maintenir un écosystème dinnovation compétitif dans lUE. Des obligations de mise à disposition trop restrictives ne sont pas conformes à la réalité opérationnelle des entreprises et dissuaderaient linvestissement. La liste des catégories de données à mettre à disposition doit être limitée au strict nécessaire, à celles déjà disponibles en Open Data et précise en termes de date de recueil des données, leur nature, complétude, qualité, pertinence.
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Meeting with Stéphane Séjourné (Member of the European Parliament)

2 Dec 2022 · Dossiers Transport

Meeting with Filip Alexandru Negreanu Arboreanu (Cabinet of Commissioner Adina Vălean)

22 Nov 2022 · Innovative projects in and outside the mobility sector and helping to face the many current challenges of transformation (climate challenge, corporate social responsibility, new ways of working, new ways of consumption, etc.)

Meeting with Antoine Colombani (Cabinet of Executive Vice-President Frans Timmermans) and TotalEnergies SE and

25 Oct 2022 · Green Deal state of play

Meeting with Vlad Gheorghe (Member of the European Parliament)

12 Oct 2022 · Railway connection

Meeting with Karima Delli (Member of the European Parliament)

5 Oct 2022 · rails

Meeting with Pascal Canfin (Member of the European Parliament)

29 Sept 2022 · Green Deal

Meeting with Daniel Mes (Cabinet of Executive Vice-President Frans Timmermans)

22 Sept 2022 · Rail Freight Policy

Meeting with Elzbieta Lukaniuk (Cabinet of Commissioner Adina Vălean)

22 Sept 2022 · Rail Freight Policy.

Meeting with Elzbieta Lukaniuk (Cabinet of Commissioner Adina Vălean), Walter Goetz (Cabinet of Commissioner Adina Vălean)

9 Sept 2022 · Rail

Meeting with Barbara Thaler (Member of the European Parliament, Rapporteur) and Alstom and Nederlandse Spoorwegen

27 Jun 2022 · TEN-T

Meeting with Fabienne Keller (Member of the European Parliament) and Deutsche Bahn AG

7 Jun 2022 · Evénement sur le fret ferroviaire

Meeting with Dorien Rookmaker (Member of the European Parliament, Shadow rapporteur)

2 Jun 2022 · Opinion on the Long-distance Rail Connections

Meeting with Dominique Riquet (Member of the European Parliament)

10 May 2022 · Infrastructures de transport

Response to Measures to better manage and coordinate international rail traffic to increase the modal share of rail

5 Apr 2022

SNCF welcomes the call of evidence which initiates the discussion on updating the current framework as for international capacity and traffic management. Need to have a network approach A network approach should be implemented (unlike the current corridor approach), providing RUs with a single point of contact (C-OSS). Connecting all current C-OSS into a virtual network turning them into a single contact point for all international capacity matters. Greater capacity harmonisation among IM would bring better capacity offers to the RUs. C-OSS should then have a "key account management" logic so that RUs have only one interface for all their "corridor" traffic, avoiding RUs having to deal with several C-OSS for the same traffic. The customer relationship would no longer be based on a geographical axis but on a customer-friendly logic, each account manager having a customer portfolio. Thus, an account manager would become the sole entry point for applicants regarding capacity requests for international traffic. Capacity managed for international traffic must be analysed throughout the path lifecycle. Better coordination among IMs and some timetabling process changes could improve capacity as offered to RUs and contribute to matching supply and demand and, thus, help to optimise infrastructure use by all actors. As for traffic management, more efficient cooperation among all actors of the logistic chain is required to improve performance and reliability of international rail transport as for both regular services and disrupted services. The rail sector is working on developing a virtual European Traffic Management network to bring national Traffic Control Centers (NTCCs) closer together. Timetabling issues RUs expect a capacity allocation process that support quality path allocation as close as possible from their request and stability, once path is allocated after final offer. Main quality drivers are the number of allocated days, the completeness of journey (according to origin and destination), journey time and – in case of international traffics – stable border point harmonisation. In a context where network maintenance and renewal are crucial, applicants face major discrepancies. When a TCR needs to be planned, an IM has several focuses to consider (technical, financial, commercial issues), leading to uncertainty and instability for applicants, depending on resources and priorities given to the IM. In the international perspective, it adds up with the coexistence of non-aligned TCR planning processes among IMs which increases chances of path alteration or suppression leading to complexity in harmonisation. Further aligned process for path production and TCR planning seems necessary to provide a fluid operations framework and eventually increase international traffics. Beyond unaligned rail paths or TCRs, RUs often face situation where adjusting capacity to their needs is not possible as capacity production steps and timelines are not aligned cross-border. Besides, RUs note current allocation processes do not consider well market variability, some national rules tend to take little in consideration traffics running once or twice per week or seasonally. Updating framework for timetabling processes is necessary to tackle these issues. RU needs should however remain the starting point of capacity production, as the current legal framework assures. SNCF deems commercial conditions should incentivise all parties of the railway sector to maximise the rail capacity use. It is key that future commercial conditions will be applied reciprocally for RUs and IMs as both parties shall be motivated for a maximum stability and reliability of their planning. Depending on the appropriate solutions, SNCF believes that the need to revise the regulatory framework (or only a targeted portion of it) will arise.
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Meeting with Marian-Jean Marinescu (Member of the European Parliament)

31 Mar 2022 · Fit for 55

Response to Evaluation and revision of the Weights and Dimensions Directive

18 Feb 2022

SNCF welcomes the upcoming revision of the Weights and Dimensions Directive and the opportunity to share its view on this complementary piece of the revision of the Combined Transports Directive. Together, we believe they will create the right framework helping the combined transport to reach the objectives to increase the rail freight traffic by 50% in 2030 and double by 2050 as stated in the Smart and Sustainable Mobility Strategy. In this respect, we support the 5 Guiding Principles listed in the answer of CER (Community of European Railways and Infrastructure Companies) to this call and which we believe should drive the discussions on Weights & Dimensions Several points need to be raised: •Public authorities must set strict rules on the type of road vehicles that are allowed on the European market, in terms of weights, dimensions, derogations to dimensions (e.g. protruding devices/aerodynamic appendices), shapes, designs, resistance to air pressure, to make sure that they are compatible with rail transport and promote rail-road interoperability and multimodality to promote combined transport. The Weights and Dimensions directive should not only be about loading trucks on trains but include the whole combined transport activity. It is important that the directive has a better integration of swap bodies in their entirety (taking loading gauge issue into better consideration for example). •Non-creanable trailers represent 90% of the road equipment, leaving only 10% of creanable semi-trailers compatible with railways. Public authorities must set strict rules on the characteristic needed for such vehicles to be transferred easily, quickly and cost-efficiently on and off wagons, enhancing the creanability of the trailers (promoting operational agility & compatibility between modes). Making the creaning of semi-trailers compulsory would bring benefits for transport and the economy as a whole, in particular the reduction of road traffic and negative externalities or the creation of fully intermodal logistics chains. •Rules must be set on road vehicles combinations to be allowed on the market in order to optimise the use of both trucks and wagons capacity (certain trailers dimensions indeed do not allow to optimize wagon capacity). •Rules must be set on the usage of certain combinations. For example, modular trucks should not be used outside intermodal operations. Conversally, if used for intermodal operations, they may optimise the transport chain. If used for long distance road transport, they may simply cannibalise more energy-efficient rail-based transport chains (combined transport or single wagonload) and still general negative externalities to society (traffic jam, road accident, particle emissions, deterioration of road infrastructure etc… ). •Lastly, in the age of multimodality, the Weights & Dimensions Directive is no more to be considered a mere road directive but a multimodal directive. It is a directive for all modes, because it is of concern to all modes. Its revision must be conducted hand in hand with the revision of the whole multimodal framework of which the revision of the Combined Transport Directive is the 2nd pillar.
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Response to Amendments to Regulation (EU) 2019/773 as regards the phasing out of specific cases for rear end signal

18 Nov 2021

SNCF remercie la Commission pour cette opportunité qui lui est offerte de partager ses vues quant à la modification du règlement (UE) 2019/773 (STI Exploitation 2019) relative à la suppression progressive des cas spécifiques concernant la signalisation arrière des trains de fret. Vous trouverez nos observations dans le document ci-joint.
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Response to Revision of ERA Fees & Charges

29 Sept 2021

La SNCF accueille défavorablement cette initiative venant augmenter de manière disproportionnée les droits et redevances dus à l’Agence de l’Union européenne pour les chemins de fer. Alors que l’objectif initial du règlement (UE) 2018/764 de la Commission était de stimuler la compétitivité du secteur ferroviaire en réduisant les charges administratives et financières qui lui incombent, en accord également avec le 4ème paquet ferroviaire, cette proposition vient compromettre cet objectif en prévoyant une augmentation significative du système de redevances et de coûts à payer à l’Agence. Elle apparaît ainsi en contradiction avec les objectifs affichés pour le secteur mais également les ambitions politiques plus larges du Pacte vert et la logique de report modal dans le but de réduire les émissions dans les transports. L’augmentation du taux horaire de plus de 80%, dans un premier temps, paraît démesurée et se heurte à une absence de justification. Une augmentation du taux horaire de cette ampleur est d’autant plus inexpliquée qu’elle est totalement déconnectée du taux d’inflation et ne s’accompagne pas de contreparties significatives tels que des engagements d’améliorations en termes de performance ou de réduction des délais nécessaires au traitement des demandes d’autorisation des véhicules. La SNCF s’inquiète en outre que cette augmentation engendre une explosion des frais à engager, ainsi qu’un effet boule de neige sur les tarifs pratiqués par les ANS. Nous sommes également étonnés que le demandeur doive s’acquitter des frais liés à l’utilisation de l’outil informatique OSS, venant s’ajouter au montant déjà augmenté de la modification du taux horaire. Cette augmentation des frais et redevances sera particulièrement lourde pour le secteur fret, retardant encore la mise à niveau et le renouvellement du matériel roulant, y compris le déploiement de l’ERTMS. A ce sujet, si aucun plafond de coûts n'est spécifié pour l'approbation de l'ERTMS TS, l'ERA devrait fournir gratuitement l'estimation des coûts au début de la procédure ERTMS TS à travers un devis. Il doit être précisé dans le règlement que la redevance pour l'utilisation de l'OSS n'est facturée qu'une seule fois pour l'ensemble de la procédure. Il est nécessaire de clarifier dans quelle situation la taxe de révocation est facturée et quels sont les coûts pour le retrait de la demande soumise par le demandeur. La SNCF croit au rôle essentiel joué par l’ERA et est convaincue de l’importance de son travail. S’il est vrai que l’Agence fait face à des prérogatives agrandies tout en disposant d’un budget limité, la SNCF appelle à une modification des droits et redevances dues qui soit proportionnée, justifiée et mesurée, ne faisant pas peser sur les demandeurs des charges mettant en péril la compétitivité du secteur ferroviaire à l’heure même où celui-ci devrait être soutenu dans une logique de report modal et de réduction des émissions dans les transports.
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Response to EU Standard for Green Bond

27 Sept 2021

SNCF welcomes the introduction of a European green bond standard. SNCF is the oldest issuer of green bonds in the European and global rail market and one of the largest in volume. The group has €7.6 billion of outstanding green bond debt, i.e. 11% of the SNCF group's total gross bond debt (as at 30 June 2021). Over the period 2016-2020, €7.2 billion of Green Bonds has been issued and avoided the release of 33.5 million tons of CO2 equivalent into the atmosphere, equivalent to the carbon footprint of around 70,000 French people over 40 years. The EU Green Bond Regulation has several positive aspects in our view: • It is based on the Taxonomy and its technical screening criteria. • It allows for the establishment of a European standard that will "democratize" the use of green bonds. • It clearly defines the role and competences of external reviewers. This text is a first step towards establishing a European regulatory framework for green bonds. Here are a few observations based on SNCF's experience in this area: First of all, SNCF notes that the EU is producing a new Green Bond Standard and not a label. Therefore, it will be important to ensure coexistence between existing standards and the EU Green Bond standard. SNCF believes that market standards and the EU Green Bond are different in their approach and operation. However, they seem to complement each other, making it possible to set up strict criteria for monitoring the allocation of bonds and to better communicate on compliance with the Taxonomy criteria set out in European legislation. However, it will be important to limit the risks of overburdening reporting by creating too many new obligations. This would have consequences in terms of cost and time, making this new standard less attractive for green bond issuers. We welcome the introduction of a 3-year look-back option (article 4.1c) for Opex. This is in line with best market standards as it avoids financing projects that are older than the date of issuance of the bond. However, we believe that it would have been more ambitious to also put in place this "look-back" clause for Capex (also 3 years). Even if the initial objective is to open up the green bond market to more players, the application of a look-back on Opex and Capex is already a common and widespread practice in the main standards. We believe that green bonds should not enable to refinance investments made years ago. Opening this possibility to Capex could risk to undermine the scope of this regulation. To us, article 4 does not seem to be clear enough regarding the possibilities of refinancing green bonds. It is important that the refinancing of an EU Green Bond with another EU Green Bond is based on the current technical review criteria and not the original ones. Bonds should follow the "regulatory" path set by the Taxonomy. Keeping "old" technical review criteria does not allow for a rapid transition to the most environmentally friendly models. SNCF welcomes the definition and supervision of external reviewers. We remain vigilant about the consequences this could bring. Depending on the extent of the obligations put in place, the number of external reviewers could be reduced (as only large structures could be able to provide this service), would be different from the usual providers (thus several providers for several standards) and could potentially lead to an increase in the price of services (depending on the additional verification work resulting from these new obligations) for the issuer.
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Response to Revision of Combined Transport Directive

16 Sept 2021

SNCF welcomes the publication of the inception impact assessment regarding the revision of the Combined Transport directive. Combined transport is one of the main drivers for achieving the ambitious growth targets for rail freight. In the context of the forthcoming revision of the Combined Transport Directive, the potential of intermodal solutions must be exploited. It will be one of the key elements to reach the doubling of the rail freight traffic as ambitioned in the Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy. The revision of the Combined Transport Directive offers the possibility of reshaping important regulatory conditions for combined transport: • Adaptation to combined transport of semi-trailers should be made compulsory (crane-able semi-trailers). Making the craning of semi-trailers compulsory would bring benefits for transport and the economy as a whole, in particular the reduction of road traffic and negative externalities or the creation of fully intermodal logistics chains. • The definition of "combined transport" should be extended to types of freight capacities and to logistics chains in general, taking into account the evolution of the freight transport market. • The definition of containers should also be broadened to include in the future modular freight boxes and bulk containers. • The advantages granted to combined transport (public aid for transshipment, exemption from road charges, financial reward) should be maintained. • Externalities on the whole journey should be taken into consideration. International road leg sections must be considered, especially as sometimes the road leg can be longer than the train journey. The horizontal loading of semi-trailers on low-bed wagons facilitates the transport of standard 4m-high road semi-trailers on the European network without any modification of the existing infrastructure. It offers a truly competitive solution, respectful of the environment, immediately operational, complementary to road transport and capable of absorbing the heavy transit traffic which currently saturates European road networks. The implementation of appropriate combined transport terminals according to the needs will be essential. The network of terminals, depending of the definition of the road leg (which should be the shorter possible) will condition the impact of the revision of the directive. However, in the medium term, the semi-trailers must become cranable. Today, semi-trailers are used for around 70% of truck transport in Europe. Only around 10% of them are suitable for combined transport, as they can be craned. The conversion of semi-trailers offers great potential at low cost (less than EUR 1000 / semi-trailer): supporting modal shift, strengthening the rail mode and using existing terminals across the EU without additional investment. It is especially true as the fleet is renewed regularly (every 5 years) which won’t require any retrofitting of the fleet. Regarding the solutions considered in the inception impact assessment, we believe that taking into consideration the externalities (Option 1) will already have an impact on the use of combined transport solutions. We support the other option as they are going further in the ambition to offer a solid ground to the combined transport sector.
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Meeting with Olivier Guersent (Director-General Competition)

16 Sept 2021 · Competition policy and sustainable development

Meeting with Pascal Canfin (Member of the European Parliament) and Unilever

29 Jun 2021 · Green Deal

Meeting with Henrik Hololei (Director-General Mobility and Transport)

18 May 2021 · Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy

Meeting with Elzbieta Lukaniuk (Cabinet of Commissioner Adina Vălean), Gaëlle Michelier (Cabinet of Commissioner Adina Vălean)

24 Mar 2021 · Meeting with with SNCF about the new SNCF transport modes' comparator

Response to Revision of Regulation on Union guidelines for the development of the trans-European transport network (TEN-T)

18 Dec 2020

SNCF welcomes the opportunity to share its feedback about the inception impact assessment on the guidelines for the development of the TEN-T network. In our view, the TEN-T network has been important in the establishment of a coherent transport infrastructure policy at European level and has notably enabled the coordination of cross-border infrastructure projects. We believe the TEN-T network will be one of the pillars of the European ambitions of the Green Deal, in particular with its objective of reducing CO2 emissions in the transport sector by 90% by 2050. The establishment of a link with the Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Directive (AFID) can be part of this ambition. It will enable the TEN-T to evolve by allowing greater integration of zero-emission or low-carbon mobility solutions. It will ensure greater coherence between the implementation of the TEN-T on the one hand, and projects enabling the use of alternative fuels such as hydrogen and biofuels on the other hand. However, the aim is to not create new obligations in the infrastructure as this could be to the detriment of economic activities that still partially use traditional fuels. TEN-T infrastructure obligations are already very important, and the objectives of the Regulation are not yet achieved. The revision could encourage the introduction and the use of alternative fuels by allowing, for example, complementary funding between the CEF Transport and Energy. It is also very important to better take into account negative externalities in order to finance the infrastructure works necessary to achieve the TEN-T and Green Deal objectives. The recent study on the internalisation of the external costs in the transport sector shows that rail respects the "user pays" and "polluter pays" principles better than any other motorised mode of transport, for both passengers and freight. It is also essential to promote the implementation of innovative digital solutions on the TEN-T network. This must be done in coherence and synergy between the systems set up on the TEN-T. Indeed, one of the early difficulties in the deployment of ERTMS on the TEN-T network was to not establish common and stable system architecture characteristics, and not taking sufficiently into account the issue of the migration of the existing systems to ERTMS as well as the coherent deployment of ERTMS on the TEN-T network (creating difficulties for deployment at cross-border level). The revision of the TEN-T regulation must, in conjunction with the successor of Shift2Rail, allow the creation of a "system pillar" to help maintain and stabilize an “architecture system” for the innovations implemented on the TEN-T. It will be the framework for the deployment of better harmonized migration schemes for future technological innovations in the rail sector (DAC, ERTMS level 3, ATO level 4, 5G Network or Traffic Management system...). Finally, the TEN-T network must better take into account the resilience of the rail infrastructure, whether for climatic reasons or wear. This is even more important as the modal shift from rail to road, after rail incidents or climatic/natural events, tends to become permanent even after the resolution of the incident. Solutions must therefore be found in order to get these users back to the railways. Improving the synergy between the TEN-T and RFC regulations, without prejudice to the roles, technical requirements and competences of each, may enable to take better into account of these situations. The revision of the TEN-T regulation should be an opportunity to strengthen the links between the two regulations, in particular by allowing freight corridors to provide their opinion on the development of the work programs of the CNCs.
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Response to Climate change mitigation and adaptation taxonomy

18 Dec 2020

SNCF welcomes the opportunity to share its opinion on the Taxonomy regulation’s delegated acts proposed by the European Commission. The texts go in the right direction for the "greening" of the financial sector and will provide with clarity investors wishing to promote the most sustainable economic activities. • SNCF has a proven track record in implementing green investment tools such as green bonds. SNCF Réseau, the French rail infrastructure manager, was the first rail infrastructure manager in the world to issue 100-year green bonds to modernize the French rail network. In total, the resources raised by SNCF's green bond programs (nearly €5.7 billion), in 2016, 2017, and 2019, have prevented the release of 21 million tons of "CO2 equivalent" into the atmosphere, representing the carbon footprint of around 43,000 French people over 40 years. • With the perspective of setting up a European standard on green bonds in connection with the Taxonomy Regulation, the technical screening criteria put in place by these first two delegated acts will make it possible to clearly define the most sustainable activities in the transport sector. They do not pose any problems of use and correspond well to the most sustainable activities in the railway sector. • With regards to the railway sector (activities 6.1, 6.2 and 6.14), the delegated acts focus on the electrification of rolling stock and infrastructure. Today, most of locomotives in use are electric and the use of diesel locomotives is set to decline. SNCF is moving towards eliminating the purchase of purely diesel equipment, without stopping their use, as these are assets that have been operating over a long period of time (almost 40 years). The technical review criteria requiring carbon-neutral or zero-emission rolling stock are therefore moving in the right direction. However, a second "lower" option could include an additional quantitative technical review criterion (gCO2e/passenger, tons.km or seat.km for passengers could be possible options) to enable the transition to the use of biofuels. • As part of its use of sustainable finance instruments, SNCF Réseau is already concentrating its funding on electrified lines. Currently, the trend is towards the electrification of rolling stock or zero-emission solutions such as hydrogen or battery-powered trains (with dual-mode use allowed by these delegated acts), and these developments are fully in line with the framework set up by the Taxonomy. • Finally, it does not seem necessary to introduce a restriction on the transport of fossil fuels. It is important to distinguish between the consumption of fossil fuels and its transport. As long as the latter is indispensable, it remains necessary to organize its transport. The taxonomy must then reinclude it and work to better minimize its carbon footprint, thus making it possible to keep some transport on rail rather than road, the railways remaining the most sustainable and safest way to achieve this. • In addition, railways play an indispensable role in the transport of hazardous goods. Rail is in some cases the only means of transport that meets important safety criteria, making some industries "captive" to rail. This is particularly the case for nuclear energy waste. It will therefore be important to clarify the status of nuclear power in the taxonomy, including the transport of its waste.
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Response to Implementing act on a list of High-Value Datasets

25 Aug 2020

SNCF welcomes the opportunity to provide comments to this initiative from the European Commission regarding the availability of “high-value” datasets held by the public sector. SNCF provides through a dedicated platform more than 200 data sets that cover a wide range of static and dynamic data to maximise the use of data and to develop interoperable and interconnected services. The goal is to make data available for re-use in a timely and easy manner, especially to meet the needs of data users such as start-ups, developers and public transport authorities, with whom SNCF works very closely. In the light of these elements, SNCF read with interest the Commission’s roadmap and has the following comments: 1/ A comprehensive EU-wide legislation for the mobility sector is already enforced: the Intelligent Transport Systems Directive (ITS) and its delegated regulation on multimodal travel information systems (MMTIS) already oblige public and private transport operators to make available for re-use valuable travel information. It is therefore important to avoid for the same data to be regulated in two European legislations with possibly different procedures, creating legal uncertainty and potential incoherencies. 2/ The ITS Directive and the MMITS regulation apply both to public and private transport operators whereas the Open Data Directive only covers public transport operators. It is important for the Commission to take into account that public transport companies like SNCF compete with private operators for the same public transport services contracts. Therefore, obliging only public transport operators to share additional data for free could lead to competition distortions with private operators. 3/ On a more technical aspect, SNCF would like to underline that producing, processing and providing access to data is an expensive process with many direct and indirect costs regarding time, IT systems and human resources. Open data does not necessarily mean “data free of charge”, and the volume of required data must also be taken into account. A minimum compensation of these direct and indirect costs related to the reproduction, supply and distribution of the data must be provided for in accordance with the provisions of the MMITS regulation.
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Meeting with Thierry Breton (Commissioner)

26 May 2020 · Discuss the impact of the Coronavirus on the rail industry

Response to Rules for rail vehicle extension of area of use and specifications on standards and transition under Union requirements

19 Dec 2019

SNCF believes that good provisions were defined by the European Commission to facilitate an extension of the area of use for railway vehicles without unnecessary bureaucratic burden. Nevertheless, we believe that the requirements in the draft legal text “COMMISSION IMPLEMENTING REGULATION (EU) …/... of XXX amending Commission Regulations (EU) No 321/2013, (EU) No 1299/2014, (EU) No 1300/2014, (EU) No 1301/2014, (EU) No 1302/2014, (EU) No 1303/2014, (EU) No 1304/2014 and (EU) 2016/919 as regards the extension of the area of use, the transition phase and applicable standards” regarding • the EC type or design examination certificate and • the extension of the area of use in the CCS domain are not appropriate and will lead to significant additional and unnecessary costs for the railway operating community. Inevitably, such financial burden will have a negative impact on the competitiveness of the railway operating community (in particular railway undertakings). SNCF emphasises that the technical pillar is designed to boost the competitiveness of the railway sector by significantly reducing costs and administrative burden for railway undertakings wishing to operate across Europe. The EC type or design examination certificate in Annex I and II (LOC&PAS and WAG TSI): The defined end of the validity period of the new EC type or design examination certificate is critical for RUs as they will lose the flexibility they have today (e.g. issue of release orders of a framework contract). In the long term, this might lead to unnecessary changes of the fleet and hence unnecessary costs. It might as well lead to more diversity in the fleet and problems with obsolescence of spare parts. SNCF suggests the following (re-)wording: “The validity period of additional EC types or design examination certificates shall be limited to 7 years (LOC&PAS) / 10 years (WAG), without exceeding 7 years (LOC&PAS) / 10 years (WAG) after the end of the validity period of the original EC type or design examination certificate” The extension of the area of use regarding the Control Command and Signalling (CCS) domain: For the extension of the area of use for a vehicle, the technical compatibility between the vehicle and the network that forms the new part of the area of use (articles 21 and 23 of the Interoperability Directive and article 39 of PA VA) applies exclusively. Therefore, it is our understanding, that there shall be no compulsory ETCS retrofit in case of the extension of the area of use. With the new Interoperability Directive, the PA VA, and the CCS TSI in force, we believe that the legal framework is fully sufficient, there is no need for such additional provisions and recommend refraining from such amendment of the legal provision in force. In this light, we reiterate our message that the technical pillar is designed to significantly reduce costs and administrative burden for railway undertakings.
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Response to European Partnership for transforming Europe’s rail system

27 Aug 2019

As a member of ERRAC and Shift2Rail, SNCF welcomes that rail was included in the list of potential institutionalised European Partnerships as it is a crucial R&I area for the successful delivery on Union priorities jobs and growth, the Digital Single Market, the Energy Union and climate action. With rail standing out as the most carbon-conscious transport mode, the Modal shift to rail is an opportunity to reduce the impact of mobility on the environment and human health. Therefore, it is important that the 9th Framework Programme continues to fund rail research projects fostering the rail sectors competitiveness through new innovative solutions. SNCF appreciates the efforts of fostering a new generation of European Institutionalized Partnerships to ensure smooth transition between R&I and the Connecting Europe Facility which shall continue to support the roll-out and deployment of innovative technologies in the rail sector. Doing so will also ensure coherence with the scope and depth of the rail research programme as described in the ERRAC 2050 vision paper. We attached more detailed comments.
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Meeting with Carlos Moedas (Commissioner) and

30 Apr 2019 · Innovation in the railway sector

Response to Type-approval requirements for elongated cabs and rear flaps for trucks/trailers

22 Feb 2019

SNCF Logistics rail and multimodal fully supports the CER response to this consultation. An important lever to increase rail modal share in order to preserve our planet is to put those running on long distance on rail. That will not be any more possible in case the 6 additionnal conditions detailed in CER paper are not taken into consideration. One has to be aware that to get a cheaper price by putting a trailer or a truck on rail instead of having it running on road for its long distance stretch, operations need to be smooth and easy for the truck company, the combined operator, the railwayundertaking as well as the infrastructure manager. Standardization of trucks in all their dimensions is therefore key.
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Response to Realignment of the North Sea – Mediterranean Core Network Corridor - BREXIT preparedness

12 Jul 2018

SNCF thanks the European Commission for the opportunity to give feedback. SNCF's contribution can be found in the attached document.
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Meeting with Jocelyn Fajardo (Cabinet of Commissioner Violeta Bulc)

19 Jun 2018 · Rail issues

Meeting with Marika Lautso-Mousnier (Cabinet of Vice-President Jyrki Katainen)

30 May 2018 · Industrial Policy

Meeting with Kaius Kristian Hedberg (Cabinet of Commissioner Elżbieta Bieńkowska)

30 May 2018 · industrial policy

Response to Economic Equilibrium Test for national rail regulatory bodies

18 May 2018

SNCF would like to thank the European Commission for the consultation process on this draft implementing act. SNCF's comments can be found in the attached document.
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Meeting with Eric Peters (Cabinet of Commissioner Mariya Gabriel)

23 Feb 2018 · Politique industrielle européenne

Meeting with Henrik Hololei (Director-General Mobility and Transport)

15 Feb 2018 · ERTMS, digitalisation, green bonds and Shift2rail

Meeting with Carlos Moedas (Commissioner) and

5 Feb 2018 · EU Industrial policy

Meeting with Johannes Laitenberger (Director-General Competition)

2 Feb 2018 · Discussion on European value chains and the role of competition policy

Meeting with Marika Lautso-Mousnier (Cabinet of Vice-President Jyrki Katainen)

29 Jan 2018 · EU industrial policy

Response to Fees and charges payable to the European Union Agency for Railways

19 Jan 2018

SNCF would like to thank the European Commission for providing stakeholders the opportunity to comment on the draft delegated regulation. Please find attached SNCF’s comments and proposed amendments on specific provisions of the draft.
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Response to Rules of procedure of the Board(s) of Appeal of the European Union Agency for Railways

15 Jan 2018

SNCF would like to thank the European Commission for providing stakeholders the opportunity to comment on the draft delegated regulation. Please find attached SNCF’s comments and proposed amendments on specific provisions of the draft.
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Meeting with Violeta Bulc (Commissioner) and

12 Oct 2017 · Meeting with the CEO Mr Pepy

Meeting with Henrik Hololei (Director-General Mobility and Transport)

28 Sept 2017 · French rail policy and operations

Response to Requirements for a safety management system for railway undertakings and infrastructure managers

15 Sept 2017

SNCF would like to thank the European Commission for providing stakeholders the opportunity to comment on the draft delegated regulation. Please find attached SNCF’s comments and proposed amendments on specific provisions of the draft.
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Response to Supervision of the railway undertakings and infrastructure managers

15 Sept 2017

SNCF would like to thank the European Commission for providing stakeholders the opportunity to comment on the draft delegated regulation. Please find attached SNCF’s comments and proposed amendments on specific provisions of the draft.
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Response to Practical arrangements for the rail vehicle authorisation process

4 Sept 2017

SNCF would like to thank the European Commission for giving the opportunity to provide feedback on this draft implementing regulation. Please find SNCF's views in the attached document.
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Response to Access to service facilities and rail-related services

17 Aug 2017

SNCF would like to thank the European Commission for the comprehensive consultation process on this implementing act. Many opportunities were given to all relevant stakeholders to provide expertise and express their views on this matter. The exchanges took place in a constructive spirit, which is welcomed. Please find in the document attached SNCF's views on the version of the draft open for feedback.
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Response to Practical arrangements for issuing single safety certificates to railway undertakings

9 Jun 2017

- SNCF suggests the following rewording of draft article 8 (Period of validity of single safety certificates): Single safety certificates shall be valid for a period of five years. However, if a shorter period is necessary to ensure the effective control of risks affecting the safety of railway operations, the safety certification body may decide, in coordination with the national safety authorities concerned by the intended area of operation, to grant the single safety certificate for a period of less than five years, for the specific concerned area of operation. In this case, the safety certification body shall include both the reasons for its decision in the outcome of the assessment registered in accordance with Article 9, and the conditions to fulfil a five years validity period. Justification: the case of differentiated limitation of duration on the different sectors of an area of operation must be considered in order to avoid that the most restrictive affects the whole area. This could actually occur in case of an extension of the area of operation. This provision shall of course exclude the cases of combined extension of area and modification of the type of operation. - SNCF suggests the addition of a third paragraph to draft article 14 (Transitional provisions): In case of extension of the area of operation without modification of the type of operation, during the period of validity of a safety certificate issued in accordance with Article 10 of Directive 2004/49/EC, the concerned safety certification bodies shall issue safety certificates taking into account the safety certificate, still valid, granted in accordance with point (a) of Article 10(2) of Directive 2004/49/EC. Justification: a safety certificate granted according to Directive 2004/49/EC shall be recognised by any certification body for its entire prior validity period.
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Response to Implementing regulation on the ERTMS European Deployment Plan

16 Nov 2016

Art.1.1 and Annex I: the Saint-Laurent-de-Mure – Modane conventional line shall be deleted from Annex I: art. 1.1 states that the scope is limited to CNCs. This line is not part of a CNC since it does not belong to the core network of the TEN-T: its inclusion contradicts maps 3.1 and 3.2 of Annex I of Reg.1315/2013. Concerning the 2 parallel lines Dijon-Mulhouse (NSMED CNC): they are not mentioned in part I of Annex I of Reg.1316/2013, thus they do not belong to that CNC and shall be deleted from Annex I. In spite of art.1.2, high speed lines appear on the maps in Annex I. They shall be removed from those maps to avoid confusion. The scope of art.2.1 shall be limited to “railway infrastructure managers”, while the sole “access to core inland port” should be covered: a port authority is also an IM, which often uses no signalling system at all while shunting at low speed. Art.2.2: SNCF supports the following wording: “A line consisting of two or more tracks shall be considered equipped as soon as two of the tracks are equipped so as to allow traffic in both directions. Where there is more than one line on a section of the corridor, at least one of the lines of this section must be equipped and the whole corridor shall be considered equipped as soon as at least one line is equipped over the whole length of the corridor”. Art.2.3: SNCF supports the following wording: “Where different deployment dates apply to cross-border sections in Annex I, the concerned Member States, acting in cooperation, should make every effort to agree on a single date for ERTMS to be put into operation simultaneously. The Member States shall conclude such an agreement not later than one year before the earlier of the deployment dates for the given cross-border section. In case of a disagreement, the Member States concerned may request support from the Commission. The Member States shall notify such agreements to the Commission not later than one month after the conclusion. The infrastructure managers shall, after having formally consulted the railway undertakings affected, sign an agreement on technical and operational aspects of the deployment for each of those sections. This agreement shall provide transitional provisions giving the best value for money for the railway undertakings’ cross-border operations. The infrastructure managers shall conclude such an agreement not later than five years before the common deployment date agreed by the Member State for the given cross-border section. The Member States shall notify such agreements to the Commission not later than one month after the conclusion”. Art.2.5: SNCF supports the replacement of “which are equipped with ERTMS” with "which are equipped with ERTMS as defined in tables A2.2 and A2.3 of Annex 1 of Commission Regulation (EU) 2016/919 in a version compatible with the trackside equipment”. Art.3.1: SNCF supports the replacement of "shall notify" by "shall inform", in line with art.49(1) of Reg. 1315/2013. Art.3.4: SNCF supports the replacement of “decide” by “accept”: in case of exceptional circumstances, a postponement shall be accepted. SNCF supports the deletion of art. 5: in the light of recital 10 its purpose is unclear and creates confusion. SNCF supports the inclusion of a new paragraph in art.4:“In case of a substantial modification of Regulation 2016/919, Member States shall provide the Commission with an impact assessment of those changes on Annex I without unreasonable delay, but at latest within one year. If the modification has a significant impact (e.g. on cost, timeline or the number of tracks to be equipped), Annex I shall be reviewed accordingly”. In addition this act shall clarify what impact its entry into force will have on the transitional provisions foreseen in article 13 of Regulation 2016/919: will this article continue to apply (and until when?), or will it cease to apply? The current lack of clarity creates legal uncertainty.
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Meeting with Jocelyn Fajardo (Cabinet of Commissioner Violeta Bulc)

6 Sept 2016 · Projet Euro digirail

Meeting with Henrik Hololei (Director-General Mobility and Transport)

6 Sept 2016 · Rail reform, rails security, ERTMS

Meeting with Jocelyn Fajardo (Cabinet of Commissioner Violeta Bulc)

24 Feb 2016 · Presentation of SNCF Logistic

Meeting with Jocelyn Fajardo (Cabinet of Commissioner Violeta Bulc)

13 Apr 2015 · Meeting with SNCF

Meeting with Eric Mamer (Digital Economy)

13 Apr 2015 · DSM

Meeting with Violeta Bulc (Commissioner)

3 Mar 2015 · Meeting with SNCF

Meeting with Violeta Bulc (Commissioner)

9 Dec 2014 · Meeting with SNCF