The South Tyrolian Presidency of the “Aktionsgemeinschaft Brennerbahn/Comunità d'Azione Ferrovia del Brennero”, which celebrated its 25th anniversary this year, organised the event together with the Bolzano Chamber of Commerce and the Foreign Office of the Autonomous Province of Bolzano, as an element embedded in the “European Year of Rail 2021”. At the event, the speakers discussed the strategic importance of the Brenner axis for the Scan Med corridor, which encompasses the Scandinavian countries as far as to southern Italy.
In his welcoming speech, Deputy Provincial Governor and Provincial Councillor for “Ladin Education and Culture, Mobility and Infrastructure”, Daniel Alfreider, underlined the importance of rail transport as a sustainable solution to achieve the goals of the European Green Deal: “Over a hundred years ago, the railway infrastructure was built, because there were no cars. Today we are expanding it, because there are too many cars.” Michl Ebner, President of the Bolzano Chamber of Commerce, on the other hand, emphasised in his welcoming remarks the necessity of interregional cooperation in the search for solutions concerning the challenges of the Brenner axis: “The Brenner is one of the most important European corridors (...). It is up to all those actors involved to find constructive and future-oriented solutions for a smarter and more sustainable mobility on the whole axis.” The participation of Pat Cox, coordinator of the ScanMed corridor, underlined the importance of the Brenner corridor as a strategic part of the European transport policy.
Afterwards, speakers discussed the topics of rail freight transport and rail passenger transport in two different panels. The first panel consisted of Markus Ferber (MEP), Emanuele Mastrodonato (ScanMedRFC), Kristian Schmidt (DG MOVE), Alberto Milotti (Consorzio Zai/Europlatform), Dirk Jan Geyer (KombiConsult) and Paolo Borchia (MEP). The second panel featured the following speakers: Herbert Dorfmann (MEP), Alberto Mazzola (CER), Kurt Bauer (ÖBB), Steven Berger (BEUC), Theresa Haid (Vitalpin) and Barbara Thaler (MEP).