Siim Kallas, Vice-President Commissioner for Transport, European Commission: Maintain and improve the European night train network

The European night train network is under threat. As a result of cost cutting, competition from low-cost airlines and a desire by the rail operators to get travellers to use the fast railway network during the day, the night trains are slowly being phased out. There are no plans to invest further resources into this service. Pan-european travel whereby one goes to sleep in a train leaving from the center of a capital city to arrive the next morning in another will soon be assigned to the past. Most pressing, the alternatives are cheap flights with a high CO2 impact, and expensive fast trains, which often do not actually reach the destination that much quicker. Solution: maintain the night train service and invest to improve it!! It will be better for the environment, better for job creation and further enhance European integration.