ERA ready to support the EU plan to accelerate high-speed rail across Europe

The European Union Agency for Railways (ERA) welcomes the publication, on 5 November 2025, of the EU plan to accelerate high-speed rail across Europe. This comprehensive plan, presented by Executive Vice President Fitto and Commissioner Tzitzikostas, is timely and ambitious to build on the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) in view of accelerating the development of high-speed rail across the EU, offering passengers significantly reduced travel times across the Union. Fast, comfortable, safe and reliable high-speed rail services enable economic growth, connectivity, scale up investments and support the EU goal of becoming carbon-neutral by 2050. High-speed rail is a key asset of the EU single market, with a lot of potential as indicated by the Letta and Draghi reports.

Since years, interoperability, ERTMS, telematics and rail data are at the core of ERA's duties. The Agency stands ready to support the European Commission and the rail sector to deliver on the ambitions of the high-speed rail plan. ERA will continue to support the Union in developing mature Technical Specifications for Interoperability, removing national technical and operational rules to allow for seamless movement of trains, upgrading its railway data platforms, as well as optimising the certification and authorisation of rolling stock. Higher harmonisation will lower the existing technical barriers that hamper cross-border rail traffic. It will help reduce costs and boost innovation and investment opportunities in rail services by existing and new companies across the Union.

"High-speed rail is a success story in some European countries, but not yet across the whole EU. ERA stands ready to deliver the key expected contributions for the success of this plan, in close cooperation with the European Commission, the Member States, the sector and the industry. We have in our hands key levers to contribute to the success of this initiative and we will be working hard to use them effectively: bringing down the persisting technical and operational barriers; putting forward mature, cost-effective and harmonised specifications; boosting the deployment of ERTMS as key enabler for safety and capacity; streamlining the certification and authorisation processes for rolling stock across the borders and facilitating access to good quality data on infrastructure and vehicles. The planned update of the ERA Regulation will be a key enabler to make the Agency more effective in this key mission"

Related links

• High-Speed Rail Plan
• Commission launches plan to accelerate high-speed rail across Europe
• Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T)