Updating the rules for cross-border train travel

🚂 The Big Picture: Why Does This Matter?

The European Union (EU) is part of a global group called OTIF. This organization creates the international rulebook that allows trains to travel safely across borders, from one country to the next.

On June 9, 2026, experts will meet in Switzerland to decide on several updates to this global rulebook.

The EU's main goal is simple: to make sure that international train rules match high EU safety standards. This prevents legal conflicts and ensures that trains can cross borders smoothly and safely.

🗳️ What is the EU Voting On?

The meeting will decide on six specific changes. Here is a breakdown of what each change is, and how the EU plans to vote on it.

1. How the Committee Works (Internal Rules)

• What's changing: The internal rules for the expert committee itself.
• EU Vote: Yes, but with a condition.
• The Condition: The EU wants to extend the deadline for receiving documents from 8 weeks to 12 weeks. This gives EU officials more time to prepare their input properly.

2. Cargo Trains (Freight Wagons)

• What's changing: Technical standards for trains that carry goods.
• EU Vote: Yes, but with a condition.
• The Condition: The EU wants to simplify some unnecessary text and add specific safety rules for devices used to secure semi-trailers (the trailers attached to the trains).

3. Passenger & Staff Trains (Locomotives)

• What's changing: Technical standards for trains carrying people.
• EU Vote: Yes, but with a condition.
• The Condition: The EU insists on adding a requirement that all trains must be equipped with self-rescue devices for passengers and crew that meet specific safety standards.

4. Technical Certificates (Proof of Safety)

• What's changing: Creating a new, standardized format for the documents that prove a train is safe to travel internationally.
• EU Vote: No.
• The Reason: The EU believes the term "certificate" is confusing because it means different things in EU law and international law. They want to rethink the terminology to avoid legal confusion.

5. Digital Tracking (Telematics)

• What's changing: Rules for how trains are tracked digitally and how data is shared between train operators and infrastructure managers.
• EU Vote: Yes.
• The Reason: This vote aligns the international rules with the latest technical guidelines published by the European Union Agency for Railways (ERA).

6. The Implementation Handbook (The Guidebook)

• What's changing: Updating the main guidebook that explains how to use all the rules.
• EU Vote: Yes, but with a condition.
• The Condition: The EU wants to fix internal links (cross-references), clarify that the rules only apply to international traffic, and add a note that local EU rules must still be respected where allowed.

💡 Why Should I Care? (The Impact)

These votes are crucial because they affect three main areas:

• Safety: They ensure that whether a train is carrying goods or people, it meets the highest safety standards across all borders.
• Legal Clarity: By voting carefully, the EU prevents international rules from contradicting existing European laws.
• Efficiency: Changes to the internal rules and the guidebook aim to make the process of approving new trains smoother and less complicated.

⚖️ Summary of the EU's Stance

The EU is generally supportive of updating the rules because it helps align international law with EU law. However, the EU is protective of its own legal standards.

• The EU will vote AGAINST the new certificate format due to legal confusion.
• The EU will vote FOR the other updates, but only if specific safety conditions are added to ensure they match EU regulations.

Broader context

The proposal sits within a long-standing effort to make international rail transport seamless across Europe and beyond. The EU is a member of OTIF, which manages the COTIF—a legal framework used by dozens of countries, including non-EU states.

Inside the EU, railway rules are already highly harmonised through packages of legislation and agencies like the European Union Agency for Railways. However, trains often travel beyond EU borders (e.g. to Switzerland, Norway, Western Balkans, or further east). That creates a need to align EU rules with international ones.

Two key legal pillars are being updated here:

• APTU Uniform Rules – how trains are built and approved
• ATMF Uniform Rules – how trains are authorized to operate internationally

The EU’s approach is to ensure that OTIF rules stay compatible with EU law, so that one set of technical approvals can work across borders. This reduces duplication and avoids situations where a train is legal in the EU but not outside it (or vice versa).

Impact on people living in the EU

For most people, the effects are indirect but meaningful:

• Safer trains: Updates to wagon and passenger train standards (like requirements for safety equipment) improve protection in accidents or emergencies.
• Better cross-border travel: Aligning rules makes it easier to run international trains without delays caused by technical or legal mismatches.
• More reliable freight: Improved standards and digital tracking (telematics) help goods move more efficiently across countries, which can affect prices and availability of products.
• Less bureaucracy behind the scenes: Common procedures and clearer rules reduce administrative hurdles for railway companies, which can support more connections and services.

Why the EU objects to the certificate format

The EU’s “No” vote on the certificate format is about legal clarity. In EU law, different types of authorisations and certificates already exist, each with specific meanings. Introducing a new international “certificate” with overlapping terminology could:

• create confusion about what is legally required
• complicate enforcement and recognition across countries

By rejecting it, the EU is trying to prevent conflicting systems and keep a single, clear framework.

Impact beyond the EU

Countries outside the EU that are members of OTIF (such as Switzerland or Türkiye) are directly affected. Aligning rules with the EU:

• makes it easier for their trains to enter the EU market
• encourages adoption of similar safety and technical standards

At the same time, EU influence in OTIF means its regulatory approach often shapes international rail standards more broadly.