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Home » Previous activities » Meeting in Vienna 12.-14. October 2018

Meeting in Vienna 12.-14. October 2018

The meeting took place at the end of an Action week 1.-12. of October. The meeting was parallel to a meeting in the airport resistance group “Stay Grounded”.  A more comprehensive report from the meetings is found here.

Friday evening: Turnabout Mobility: The challenge to stay grounded

  • Prof. Emeritus Hermann Knoflacher (Vienna Technical University)
  • Sam Mason and Tahir Latif (Public and Commercial Services Union, UK)
  • Laura Machler (Am Boden bleiben; Stay Grounded Network)
  • Trevor Garrod (Back on Track; former President of the European Passengers‘ Federation)

Moderation: Mathias Krams (University of Vienna)

>> Pictures

>> Video from the entire meeting

Saturday 11.10. 

9.45 Quick round of introductions. Input Stay Grounded: Who are we, where are we, what has happened in the last months? Input Back on Track: Overview over activities and aims

11.00 Short inputs on interesting developments (no more than 5 minutes each):

Online Input: CORSIA, EU-ETS (Simone Lovera)

Online Input: mapping-analyzing airport conflicts around the world (Sarah Mingorria)

Trade unions and just transition (Sam, PCS)

Online input: Current situation of Spain and our expectations (Alejandro Gonzalez, Eco-Union)

Back on Track: Austria/Germany with ÖBB and DB developments including Poland

Back on Track: France/Spain

Back on Track: Switzerland by Francois Perillon Slides here.

Back on Track: Scandinavia by Poul Kattler Slides here

Online input: Melbourne Airport Masterplan & expansion (John Englart)

Stopping the expansion of Arlanda airport, Stockholm (Andrea)

Message from the struggle against New Mexico City International Airport (read out by Mira)

13-18: Back-on-Track

1) General introduction – European Union level, Trevor
2) Germany, short contribution by  Joachim on the latest political developments (government, parliament, control agency “Bundesrechnungshof” get more critical on DB’s profit-centered policy), Slides here.
3) Kurt Bauer, ÖBB, Slides here.
4) France
5) Other short reports. David Loher Slides here. Michael Jung Slides here.

Sunday  12.10. 9.30: Back-on-Track. 

  • Next year activities in the network: Write proposals on post-it
  • Sorting and priorities among the proposals.
  • Getting more of you involved.
  • Getting Back-on-Track a little bit more formal

13-15: Special focus: The situation of trains and night trains in Eastern Europe. Introductions by Iwona Budych (Poland) Slides here, Miroslav Vyka from the Czech Republic Slides here and shorter contributions from other participants from this part of Europe.

>>  See a Czech add about night trains! Please open and watch with VLC-Player

15-16.30: Back-on-Track and Stay Grounded together: Conclusions in common.

>> Pictures

16.30-18.00: Back-on-Track and Stay Grounded together: Photo action.

Very brief memo about decisions from Back-on-Track meeting 13.-14. October 2018 in Vienna

Sunday morning we made a priority among many suggested activities

All suggestions will be typed and circulated. But this is the overall conclusions:

Better presence on web, on Twitter and Facebook

Ideas to improve came up to our website, split focus to two: 1. How to use night trains (refer to other relevant sites)? 2. Our political work and activism.

Workgroup established: Sebastian, Nicolas and Poul. Editorial assistance from Julian.

Stronger set-up of Back-on-Track organization

With precise changes valid for the next year. See below.

Conference in Brussels late January 2019

Again to arrange a conference. And to make closer ties with some agencies and Ngo’s in Brussels.

Welcome back party Berlin (and Vienna)

To welcome the new night train around 9.12. We need to know exactly which evening/ which morning it will run, to make this happen. Banners, balloons,

Influence parties before European election May 2019

Establish questions to parties about transport policies and climate aspects of transport.

Influence politicians about CORSIA

If EU will hand over everything about fuel and greenhouse emissions from air traffic to CORSIA we are really in trouble. Stay Grounded will propose some statements we can carry to our national organizations to put pressure on EU. Coming up very soon.

Action week 2019

After evaluation of activities in 2018, we are ready to do something of this kind again in 2019, and will be happy to share with Stay Grounded.

Next meeting

Could take place in Brussels in November 2019 in conjunction with a European Mobility Week.

A report from our meeting

Trevor Garrod has volunteered to make a report from the meetings that took place in Vienna. A draft can be expected early November.