Cover letter
(Cover letter; please translate in your language and develop as you wish with national context insights…),
Dear MEP,
Night trains are fragiles and are still disappearing, like the Paris-Munich-Vienna discontinued in december 2025. An EU action is needed : the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) will soon be debated in the Parliament. This is a good opportunity to finally lay the economic foundations to redeploy international night trains. We are glad to propose to MEPs, in a cross-party approach, some draft amendments here.
We remain at your disposal to improve these amendments,
Thank you for your commitment to rail and night trains,
Back-on-track Europe is an European-registered organization to relaunch night trains
95 000 people signed the petition
You can find the contact emails of MEPs here : choose particularly those on the Transport Committee (see also the MEPs who have already committed in the map here).
When you send to and communicate with your national members of EP, please copy the mail to francois.perillon at gmail.com, poul at kattler.dk or send us a simple overview. The Advocacy Working Group will also like to hear about the response, so we can develop our database on contracts in the EP.
Our amendments on the first CEF document from the Commission
| Status: What you find here is our amendments based on the CEF document, we have seen so far. The document has in the meantime been in a process in the EU system, next step will be a new version of the CEF document and debate and voting in the European Parliament. When the new document is on the table, we will adjust our amendments according to the new text. In the meantime we prepare our position together with friends and allies. And when the revised document is on the table of the European Parliament, we will try as possible to influence the decission making in our direction. Our final amendments will be published open on our website – without these internal considerations… If you prefer, you can retrieve our amendments as a Word document or a pdf document. |
| Or you may like to take the text “raw” from this website |
| French translation here. |
In 2021, the EU published a 10-point action plan for night trains and cross-border trains. Today, most of the actions remain unfinanced and the EU has not yet successfully established a really viable economic model for night trains.
The Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) aims to promote international rail travel. Night trains are a practical and in-demand mobility option for optimising usable travel time, and are faster and less expensive to implement than HSR for journeys of 1,000 km and beyond. The CEF should therefore include night trains in its funding targets.
Here are some draft amendments for this purpose. We stand ready to refine them with parliamentarians and promote them in a cross-party manner.
Index
1) Priority amendment: co-finance rolling stock for night trains
2) Amendment: co-fund Tracks Access Charges for night trains
3) Amendment: co-finance maintenance workshops for night trains
4) Ambitious and low-priority amendment : co-finance the operating costs of night trains
5) Secondary amendment: mesh the rail network
1) Priority amendment: co-finance rolling stock for night trains
Proposal for a regulation
After the last sentence of point (2), add: “In its Action Plan to boost long-distance and cross-border passenger rail transport of 14 December 2021, the European Commission proposes to take action to finance rolling stock. To achieve this, the CEF finance rolling stock, particularly for night trains, as there is a significant shortage in this market segment.”
Explanatory memorandum
The EU announced an action plan for night trains and cross-border long-distance trains on 14 December 2021. This plan foresees the financing of rolling stock. Unfortunately, to date, the budget line for night trains has remained nearly empty. It is time to address this shortcoming for 2028.
Night trains can travel further than day trains, covering distances of over 1.000 km. They are mentioned in the CEF Regulation and can effectively improve connectivity across the continent. They are particularly well suited to meet the connectivity objectives of peripheral regions and territories. By being adapted to run on the historic rail network, they make it possible to diversify the number of origins and destinations, so that not to serve only the main corridors.
Dual civil and military use and disaster resilience are also arguments in favour of night trains, which have been standardised for use throughout Europe since the 20th century. They run on theconventional network, which is better meshed and therefore less vulnerable in the event of a cut in the infrastructure at one point. For example, a night train such as the European Sleeper Brussels-Berlin-Prague already uses up to 250 route variations when the main infrastructure is interrupted for works. Distances of more than 2.000 km are already covered, for example by the Trenitalia charter night trains between southern Italy and western France. Night coaches allow for mixed freight and passenger trains, which can be useful for dual use : ÖBB and RDC, for example, operate car-sleeper trains. In practice, the dual civil and military use of night trains has declined in recent decades due to a shortage of night-time rolling stock.
In fact, the EU has only 1.500 aging night trains cars, which is low compared to the 2.000 cars available in Ukraine alone. It should be noted that many European heads of state travelled to Ukraine by night train to Kiev. [Russia, for its part, has 7.000 night train cars, enabling it to make massive journeys across Eurasia. For example, until 2020, it operated both a Paris-Moscow and a Moscow-Beijing route.] To fully deploy this virtuous mobility, Europe needs 10.000 night train carriages to relaunch 300 night train lines.
Such a project of European interest could lead to standardization for circulation throughout Europe. This could help launch a European rail Airbus to kick-start cooperation between European manufacturers, at a time when they are facing competition from Chinese manufacturer CRRC. China is entering the European market with rolling stock that is significantly cheaper and faster to produce thanks to large-scale production and strategic subsidies. Our fragmented rail industry is struggling to meet current demand: delivery delays of several years are commonplace.
Furthermore, concentrating budgets exclusively on high-speed rail is very expensive, lengthens delays : the European Commission has highlighted (pages 43-48 of the CEF) the lack of budget and the slower-than-expected implementation of the high-speed network. Building the equipment to launch 300 night train lines costs 10 to 20 times less. It is also quicker to achieve. The two modes of transport (night trains and high-speed rail) should not be pitted against each other, and to this end, funding must be balanced so as not to stifle one mode of transport in favor of another, which would undermine the balance of competition between modes of transport.
For the moment, the EU has not yet developed an economic model for international night trains. One of the main costs of night trains is rolling stock, which accounts for 45% of total costs, according to a 2024 German government study. Specific aid for rolling stock is therefore key to developing the economic model.
As a reminder, in intermodal competition, all modes of transport receive support: one of the main costs of aviation is fuel, which has historically led public authorities to offer tax breaks on kerosene and, more recently, subsidies for sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs). For high-speed rail, the main cost is infrastructure, and the EU wants to support this mode of transport to the tune of €500 billion. For night trains, the main cost is rolling stock, and this is where it needs support from Europe. This form of mobility is in high demand among European citizens. This mobility is widely demanded by European citizens. To promote plurality in mobility and avoid suffocating one mobility option in favor of another, EU needs to consider rolling stock for night trains as infrastructure to be financed through the EIF.
The European Commission points out that “The CEF’s actions should be used to address market failures or sub-optimal investment situations, in a proportionate manner, without duplicating or crowding out private financing”. The night train start-up Midnight Trains, selected as one of the EU’s pilot projects, gave up, complaining that there was a lack of public support to acquire rolling stock that it would have largely co-financed with private funds. Similarly, European Sleeper does not have funds to purchase new rolling stock. EU co-financing is therefore particularly welcome as a lever for building the economic model and attracting the necessary funding for night trains. [Auteur in1]
Other possible wording for this amendment
Art. 3, 2. a) i), add after the last sentence of point (2) “In this respect, rolling stock for night trains will be eligible.”
2) Amendment: co-fund Tracks Access Charges for night trains
Insert in the Explanatory Memorandum, after “rail freight” : “The CEF contributes to financing Track Access Charges for fragile market segments, in particular for night trains.”
Explanatory memorandum
High-speed rail is relevant for journeys of 300 to 1,000 km. Night trains are in high demand in Europe for longer journeys: they complement the service for journeys of more than 1,000 km. Distances greater than 1,500 km are accessible, since the comfort of night trains often allows the journey to be extended into the following day. The distance can also be extended as soon as night trains are allowed to use the high-speed network, at least during certain time slots (evenings and mornings).
In May 2025, the EU published guidelines on Track Access Charges (TACs). Each member state has now to implement it. Night trains must be treated as a separate traffic segment, thus be exempted from TACs exceeding direct cost and get priority in slot allocations.
However even so, cumulative TACs over such long distances end up being expensive. Furthermore, the EU and some Member States prefer night trains to be operated without operating subsidies. This encourages to build the business model by providing support to rebalance the sector in other ways, for example through TACs financing. Similarly, freight transport is widely supported in several countries, such as France, through TACs subsidies. Germany, for its part, subsidizes TACs for both long-distance passenger and freight trains.
In its Position Paper of May 5, 2025, the Community of European Rail Organizations (CER) call for an action plan to adjust TACs. In the past, the EU has allocated billions of euros to build cross-border high-speed lines… which have remained underused (e.g., Figueres-Perpignan, with only four passenger trains per day). Subsidized TACs for night trains will increase the use of the rail network, which is all the more relevant given that night trains run partly at off-peak times, particularly in the evening, when the rail network is less heavily used. Note also that, in the morning, night trains enter major cities at a time when high-speed trains are mainly running in the opposite direction. Ultimately, night trains are generally off-peak trains, at least in the long-distance passenger traffic. They optimize and complement the use of the rail network and high-speed lines. This helps to avoid underuse of the high-speed network, which is largely financed by public funds.
Funding TACs is funding infrastructure. In that sense, CEF can also co-finance Infrastructure Managers to optimise the organisation of construction works with the aim of maximising track availability 365 days a year, particularly during nighttime hours, for both freight and night trains.
CER Position Paper, 2025 5th of May : “the Action Plan could explore the possibility of targeted adjustments to TACs as a way to foster network usage and limit the risk of underutilization” ; “Today, rail transport faces an unfair disadvantage compared to less climate-friendly modes due to imbalanced intermodal framework conditions. Overcoming this requires political action to ensure railway undertakings can expand services in an economically viable way. One major issue is infrastructure costs—while rail passengers contribute to funding tracks through ticket prices, road transport often remains free despite its higher environmental impact.”
3) Amendment: co-finance maintenance workshops for night trains
Insert in the Explanatory memorandum, after “rail freight”: “The CEF contributes to financing maintenance workshops for night trains.”
Explanatory memorandum
Night trains require few new infrastructure compared to high-speed trains. It is therefore important— for the sake of fairness between long-distance commutes — to ensure that infrastructure for night trains is also co-financed by the CEF.
Furthermore, the EU would benefit fromnot focusing solely on high-speed rail for long distances in Europe: high-speed trains cannot efficiently travel beyond 1.000 km, nor serveless densely populated regions. It does not allow passengers to arrive early in the morning after a 1.000 km journey, which night trains do and which is essential to be a viable alternative to air travel. Over such distances, both night and day services are necessary, and only together do they constitute an alternative to air travel across all time slots throughout the day. These two modes of transport are complementary and both have to be fund together.
Access to maintenance workshops and train preparation facilities is a significant and often overlooked barrier to entry when launching new rail activities. Night train services are particularly affected: night trains offer the advantage of being able to operate across the whole conventional network, thus offering a wide variety of potential origins and destinations. However, in order to deploy a well-distributed service across the entire territory, maintenance workshops are also needed throughout Europe. Yet the trend towards trainsets, particularly in certain Western European countries, has reduced the number of maintenance workshops for push-pull trains. Push-pull trains have many advantages, particularly for crossing borders and reducing costs. They are already making a comeback in some countries, and operators such as DB, ÖBB and Flixtrain have ordered push-pull trains.
CEF will benefit from facilitating the return of night trains and day trains in push-pull formations, which will connect a wide variety of European routes,broadly complementary to the TEN-T corridors. CEFs can contribute by co-financing the creation or modernization of maintenance workshops specifically for night train operations.
For example, France wants to relaunch night trains but but has only one maintenance workshop for this purpose. This “Paris-Masséna” workshop only allows night trains to be relaunched from Paris and to the south. Moreover, it is already close to saturation point. There are no workshops or even platforms available to prepare night trains departing from France to northern and central Europe. This shortcoming has weighed heavily to the dismantling of the Paris-Berlin and Paris-Vienna night trains, which could not be fully deployed, either on a daily basis or split into two single-branch trains. Similarly, the start-up European Sleeper is forced to prepare its night trains in uncomfortable conditions. The lack of workshops limits the deployment of the network to 10 night train lines announced in 2022 by France. However, this network would enable international connections to Spain, Italy, Switzerland, and the German and Luxembourg borders. It should be supported by the EU for cross-border mobility. [Through the railway packages, the EU has promoted the spread of new operators in each Member State. This also leads to fragmentation of equipment and maintenance workshops. This results in even more additional costs because, in order to be efficient, workshops need to be located as close as possible to the central stations of large cities, where land is particularly scarce and expensive. The EU should compensate for the additional costs incurred by the need to increase the number of workshops, in order to prevent railway packages from being perceived as an obstacle to the smooth functioning and productivity of the railway sector.]
4) Ambitious and low-priority amendment : co-finance the operating costs of night trains
Insert in the Explanatory memorandum, after “rail freight”: “The CEF co-finance operation of night trains.”
Explanatory memorandum
Some night train operators have a self-financing rate of 80% or 85%, which is high given the fiscal imbalance in intermodal competition and the lack of monetization of positive externalities. As a reminder, conventional-speed public transport generally has self-financing rates of less than 50%. Night trains are therefore not far off reaching the level of self-financing that will enable them to attract the investment needed for their revival.
The EU has failed to reduce tax breaks on aviation fuel, which maintains a hidden subsidy of €30 to €40 per airline ticket. This tax break distorts the market and is causing night trains to disappear.
After establishing new rail infrastructure, that alone does not guarantee that trains will run on the line, if the business case (temporary) seems unfavorable for “Open Access”.
The routes should then after the rulebook be tendered by national authorities as PSO. To stimulate establishment of night train routes that cannot be established under Open Access conditions and need the cooperation of more than one national authority on PSOs, the EU should allocate the means from its budget to support member states with 50% of the subsidies needed as a temporary arrangement. However, the minimum standards that these operators shall meet, will be specified in the tendering; concerning stops, number of days running and service standards for the train.[Auteur in1]
To level the playing field, temporary aid for night trains should be granted at a comparable level, in the order of €30 per passenger split between national authorities and the EU. Such temporary aid will greatly boost night train services at a relatively moderate cost, approximately €300 million for 10 million passengers per year. Such a night network would generate economies of scale and synergies that would significantly reduce the need for subsidies among the most economic routes, and subsidies can after some years be diverted to regions with more need.
This funding meets the criteria set out on page 1: “CEF addresses market failures” in that it rebalances competition. It also meets the objectives listed on page 4: “the CEF should focus on supporting (i) projects with a cross border dimension” and “attract private investmentsin the EU, creating significant leverage effect”. Thanks to this co-financing, operators will be able to achieve economic equilibrium and thus mobilize the necessary funding. It also fulfills the objective on pages 7 : “CEF funding is consistently deemed indispensable, enabling crucial transport projects that would otherwise face significant delays, reduced scope, or not be carried out at all due to insufficient national or private funding.” Without this decisive aid, the revival of night trains is in danger, even though it is currently surviving on a knife edge.
Even more ambitious wording
Art. 3, 2. a) i), add after the last sentence of point (2) “As such, co-financing for the operation of night trains is eligible.”
5) Secondary amendment: mesh the rail network
Art. 3, 2. a) i), after (3) add a point “(4) actions to improve the existing rail network in order to mesh the railways and increase resilience to shocks.”
Explanatory memorandum
The mesh network can provide alternative routes so that freight trains, night trains and dual-use civil and military trains can reach their destination in the event of an interruption on a main corridor. For example, the European Sleeper night train between Brussels, Berlin, and Prague already uses up to 250 alternative routes when the main infrastructure is out of service due to works.
Mesh infrastructure is therefore in line with the CEF proposal, which states on page 1 that “it is essential to ensure that investments under the CEF are risk-informed and disaster resilient”. The high-speed network, as implemented in France and Spain, is not tightly woven, making it highly vulnerable to geopolitical risks and environmental disasters.
Increasing rail connectivity by improving existing rail networks willenhance disaster resilience and dual use. The CEF would benefit from financing improvements to the conventional network, which suffers from underinvestment in many countries, including Germany, France, Spain, etc. Note that military mobility is not narrowed down to the core TEN-T network precisely to guarantee alternative routes on the ground of resilience.
Furthermore, the EC highlighted (pages 41-45 of the CEF) the lack of budget and the slower than expected implementation of the high-speed network. Modernizing, improving, or electrifying existing infrastructure costs significantly less than building new infrastructure. Another benefit is that it avoids further land development and the resulting loss of biodiversity. Ultimately, many underused or abandoned infrastructure will benefit from being eligible for CEF funding, especially if they help to mesh cross-border routes.