On 28 and 29 March 2017, the Minister for Sustainable Development and Infrastructure, François Bausch, participated in
At a high-level meeting of stakeholders in Malta today and yesterday, Minister for Sustainable Development and Infrastructure Francois Bausch met with his counterparts to address road safety, which does not seem to be showing measurable improvements over recent years.
Recent EU-wide road safety statistics have shown that the number of deaths on European roads has not improved for the second consecutive year and that the target of halving the number of deaths on the road by 2020 is becoming more and more difficult.
The objective of the conference was to launch a political debate and to define the main lines of the political orientations to come. The ministers adopted a declaration in which they pledged to reduce substantially the number of seriously injured. Minister Bausch strongly supported an ambitious approach in this context.
In a bilateral meeting with EU Transport Commissioner Violeta Bulc, on the sidelines of the meeting, François Bausch expressed his wish to put on the agenda of the next Transport Council on 8 June 2017 the regulations on ETCS (European train control system) in order to move towards standardisation of the large number of systems currently used on the various European networks.
In particular, this system will allow rapid and safe passage of trains across borders. The committee fully supports this proposal, which should be on the agenda of the next Transport Council in Luxembourg on 8 June 2017.
In the spirit of promoting the least polluting modes of transport, the Luxembourg Presidency organised in October 2015 in Luxembourg an informal meeting of transport ministers dedicated to cycling. Following this informal meeting, ministers adopted a declaration on cycling as a mode of transport in view of the efficiency of the bicycle in daily travel and its societal, ecological and economic impact in the European Union .
To this end, Violeta Bulc and Minister Bausch will also attend the forthcoming Velo-city 2017 conference in Arnhem-Nijmegen in the Netherlands in June, during which the project for a European Bike Strategy will be presented.
Speaking at the informal meeting of Transport Ministers today, Minister Bausch stressed the situation of vulnerable road users, in particular edestrians and cyclists. "Things can only improve if there is political will" , he said.
