The European Management Committee met in London on 13 March at the same time as a very important conference on the UK High Speed programme.

Mr Moretti, who has been the chair of the European Region since 1 January 2014, welcomed the participants and detailed the vision for the region for the two years to come.

The meeting then focused on the main following items:

• The Rail Technical Strategy Europe (RTSE), based on the vision document Challenge 2050, which was published in February and defines the European innovation programme for the years to come. The meeting agreed that this is an important document and that it should be reviewed on an annual basis so as to ensure it remains current. The European budget should ensure that this is properly resourced.
• The Shift²Rail Joint Initiative; pending the approval of the Council on the proposed Regulation defining the framework, the College of willing innovators plans to seek for full associate membership within a consortium facilitated by the UIC
• Reviewed and supported the proposed approach for a renewed framework of cooperation on standardisation with CEN_CENELEC
• COP 21 in Paris in 2015; the EMC was presented a series of events to be launched on the occasion of this major event on sustainability.
• Presentation of UIC as a global technical platform to an invited audience at an event to be held on 8 April at the European Parliament in Brussels

One highlight of the meeting was the presentation by Mr Andrew McNaughton, HS2 Technical Director, of the UK HS2 programme, one of the most ambitious high speed programme currently being developed in Europe.