We are now into the second month of the European Year of Rail. The European Commission initiative highlights the benefits of rail as a sustainable, smart and safe means of transport. A variety of activities will put rail in the spotlight throughout 2021 across the continent, to encourage the use of rail by both citizens and businesses, and to contribute to the EU Green Deal goal of the EU becoming climate-neutral by 2050. Despite the advantages of rail, only about 7% of passengers and 11% of goods travel this way. The European Year of Rail will create momentum to help increase rail's share of passenger and freight transport. This will cut the greenhouse gas emissions and pollution coming from EU transport significantly, making a huge contribution to the EU's efforts under the European Green Deal. As the first year of full implementation for the 4th railway package, 2021 will also represent an important leap towards the Single European Railway Area: a more efficient European rail network with seamless mobility across borders.

More than 300 companies and organisations signed the Neptune Declaration on Seafarer Wellbeing and Crew Change. EU Commissioner for Transport Adina Vălean supports this global call to action to resolve the ongoing crew change crisis and facilitate safe operations for seafarers.

💡 We are modernising rail #PassengerRights w/ @Europarl_EN & @EUCouncil to: ✔ increase the offer of through-tickets ✔ provide real-time information ✔ strengthen rights of passengers w/ disabilities & reduced mobility ✔ increase bike space

€200 million is the value of a call for proposals that has opened under the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) for Transport to support projects aiming to build, upgrade and improve European transport infrastructure. The call for proposals supports studies under the General and Cohesion envelopes concerning infrastructure projects for railways, inland waterways, maritime and inland ports, as well as infrastructure projects for road networks for Member States that either have no railway network within their territory, or which have an isolated network without long-distance rail freight transport. The call deadline is 22 March 2020 at 17:00 CET.