On 26 February 2013, a Joint Declaration on the promotion of Euro-Asian rail transport and activities towards unified railway law was signed at a ministerial meeting organised at the Palais des Nations in Geneva. This is an important step towards the unification of railway law between Europe and Asia.

This declaration, which has been signed by 37 countries (1), constitutes the expression of the political will of these States to implement the strategy described in the declaration in order to establish legal conditions for railway transport equivalent to those existing for competing modes, such as road, air, inland waterways and maritime transport.

In parallel and as a complementary direction, these States also invited interested railway enterprises, other stakeholders and international railway organisations and associations to pursue work on the development of general conditions of transport for Euro-Asian rail transport (GTC EurAsia).

OTIF welcomes the signature of this declaration and will bring all its expertise to bear in pursuing this work, which will be carried out simultaneously in international governmental organisations and international railway associations with a view to making rapid progress towards unified railway law between Europe and Asia.

The text of the declaration can be downloaded from the UNECE website:

http://www.unece.org/fileadmin/DAM/trans/doc/2013/itc/Joint_Declaration_on_URL.pdf

(1) Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, (FYR of) Macedonia, Malta, Moldova, Mongolia, Netherlands, Pakistan, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russian Federation, Serbia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Tajikistan, Turkey, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.

On 21 February 2013, the Government of Pakistan deposited an application for accession to COTIF.

The accession procedure should be concluded by September 2013. Pakistan will therefore become the 49th Member State of OTIF.

Pakistan's accession is linked to the initiative by the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) to set up a rail link for trains carrying containers between Islamabad and Istanbul via Tehran, which might one day be extended to western Europe and southern Asia. Various auxiliary lines will link up with this corridor.

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The new Secretary General took up his duties on 1 January 2013 and the Organisation has set itself some new priorities. This new impetus must nevertheless be defined within the context of budgetary control.

It is therefore essential to assess properly the strengths and weaknesses of the Organisation's human resources and the ability of the latter to be able to tackle the Organisation's new challenges.

On 21 February 2013, OTIF's Administrative Committee decided to endorse the terms of reference for an external audit to be carried out from May to June 2013 (Appendix - terms of reference).

We would draw your attention to the short deadline for the receipt of tenders. This deadline was set by the Administrative Committee owing to the urgency of the matter.

The deadline for the submission of tenders is 22 March 2013. Tenders should be sent by post to the following address:

OTIF
For the attention of Mr Fabien Decker
Gryphenhübeliweg 30
CH – 3006 Berne 

Or, if urgent, by e-mail.

If you have any further questions, please contact Mr Fabien Decker, OTIF's head of administration and finance, at the following address: fabien.decker(at)otif.org

The General Assembly, the highest body of OTIF, was convened in Geneva on 19/20 September under the chairmanship of Spain. For the first time, the General Assembly elected a French national, Mr. François Davenne, as Secretary General for the next term of office from 2013 to 2015.

The General Assembly also designated the members of the Administrative Committee, the administrative body of OTIF, which meets on a regular basis between the meetings of the General Assembly. The chairman of the Administrative Committee will be Mr. Franc Van der Steen from the Netherlands.

The General Assembly also decided that in view of the difficult budgetary situation in the Member States, OTIF’s budget should be stabilised in a way that allows it to carry out its functions in full throughout the next term of office. The General Assembly also took note of the activities that have been undertaken since its last session.

The General Assembly, which is the highest organ of OTIF, is convened every three years and, inter alia, elects the Administrative Committee, sets the maximum amount of the Organisation’s expenditure for the next 6 years, elects the Secretary General and takes forward-looking decisions in areas defined in COTIF.

The subjects to be dealt with requiring the General Assembly’s legal, political and specialist expertise are, e.g.:

• the exercising of voting rights;
  
  
• measures compatible with COTIF to remove obstacles to border crossing in international rail traffic to the extent that the causes of these obstacles are within the responsibility of States;
  
  
• cooperation with other international governmental organisations.

Committee of Technical Experts adopts during its 5th meeting the so-called “freight package“ (provisions on wagons and noise).

This year, under the chairmanship of Japan, leaders in the international transport policy scene will meet at the International Transport Forum Summit  in Leipzig from 2 to 4 May. It is particularly gratifying that this year’s theme is at the heart of OTIF’s daily business.

If the political will is to promote trade and the long-distance transport of goods by rail between, for example, Europe and Asia, it is no secret that the competitiveness required in rail transport can only be achieved by making it reliable. The customer and the carrier must be able to rely not just on the delivery time, but also on being able to calculate reliably and predictably all the transport costs that will be incurred.

In rail transport, there is primarily a lack of transparency and legal certainty in the individual processing procedures at border crossings (especially at so-called “transit borders”). In this connection, an agreement under international law to formulate and promulgate the law transparently, where available, seems to be an economically interesting and natural first step in order to remove obstacles to border crossing in the shortest possible time.

This is precisely the task that COTIF imposes on the Secretary General of the Intergovernmental Organisation for International Carriage by Rail, OTIF.