On 23 November 2017 the first General Assembly meeting of the SEESARI initiative was held at the premises of the Slovenian Railways. High level participants originated from Slovenia, Serbia, Croatia, Hungary, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Czech Republic, France and Turkey gathered in the famous “Glass Hall” for this event.
After the kick-off meeting in 2016, more than 50 organisations have signed the Declaration of Intent, which can be also requested at the website www.seesari.org. After a welcome and introduction by SEESARI chairman Dr. Peter Verlič of the Slovenian Railways and Director of the SŽ Transport Research Institute, he reported on all activities to present, discuss and promote the SEESARI initiative.
Dr. Verlič went on to present the Workplan for 2018 and to mention that SEESARI will be featured on the agenda of the upcoming important meetings. After mentioning the main elements of the European Commission’s White Paper and the new draft MAAP of the S2R JU, he presented the main pillars for the future activities of SEESARI which were in line with EU policy and S2R documents.
Within past activities also TRAIANUS project was mentioned which was successfully submitted within the Danube call and is waiting for final evaluation. The project aims to connect Northern Adriatic Sea – Danube-Black Sea area in order to have a more environmentally-friendly, low-carbon and safe rail-based freight transport services for a better regional connectivity and a more balanced accessibility of urban and rural areas, and for their better rail connections with TEN-T core network corridors. 10 SEESARI members participate in Consortium as regular or associated partner.
Mr. Dennis Schut – secretary to SEESARI – went on to present the UIC, its aims and activities and the benefit and possible ways of support to the initiative of its members in the strategically important South-East Europe region.
Mr. Guillaume Foeillet had a presentation about the possible ways in which the SNCF could support SEESARI, Ing. Mgr. David Krásenský from ABIRail CZ made a presentation about a system-wide approach to the Integration of public transport – tariff, network, and information integration.
At the meeting also the SEESARI Steering Committee was formed and Mr. Miroslav Stojčić, the General-Director of the Serbian Railways was elected to be the chairman of the Steering Committee.
The SEESARI General Assembly was concluded after the presentation of various project proposals, initiated by mainly the Slovenian, Serbian, Croatian and Hungarian Railways.
For further information, please contact Dennis Schut at schut@uic.org, Blaž Jemenšek at blaz.jemensek@prometni-institut.si or info@seesari.org.
