World-wide

Objective

Following the Lisbon Treaty and the 2011 Transport White Paper, the EC has a strong mandate to represent the EU railway policy outside the EU Member States, especially in neighbouring countries (e.g. Balkans) but also in strategic markets (e.g. Asia).
DG MOVE, DG TRADE and DG GROWTH are keen to engage in a constructive dialogue with non-EU countries to ensure growth, jobs and competitiveness.
An important ambition of the EU is to export European rail know-how and to expand its flagship initiative, the European Trans-European Transport Networks (TEN-T), across EU borders. For that purpose, the EU engages with neighbouring countries but also trade partners and other actors on a bilateral and multilateral level.

Within the framework of this ambition, the EU has set up various platforms addressing infrastructure issues, such as the EU-China Connectivity and the EU-Asia Connectivity Platform.

Rail infrastructure has become a strategic asset in geopolitics. The growing number of trade agreements concluded by the EU naturally foster trade and thus import and export of services and goods. This requires increasing rail infrastructure capacities and better interconnectivity between EU and non-EU rail systems.
By the same token, several European rail Infrastructure Managers are eager to export their know-how to foreign countries.