The 7th UIC Refugee Task force meeting was attended remotely on 26 April 2022 by around 35 participants from across Europe, with representatives from UIC member railways and partner organisations.
Marc Guigon, UIC Passenger Director, Coordinator Middle-East and Latin American Regions, Coordinator UIC Refugee and Covid-19 Task Forces, together with Vanessa Pérez Miranda, UIC Senior Passenger Advisor, welcomed the participants.
Anton Pylypchuk, representing Ukrainian Railways (UZ), shared the latest news regarding the situation in Ukraine, notably significant delays to trains caused by damage to five railway stations across the country. He reminded the meeting of the websites that can be consulted by the public containing all the latest news and stressed the importance of this UIC Task Force as a real dispatching point for the exchange of information between the railways.
Daria Kardel, UIC Senior Security Advisor, presented the new UIC Draft Document on Potential measures in response to the Ukrainian refugee crisis: Guidance for railway stakeholders. The document is based on information taken from the Task Force meetings, the questionnaire, the LinkedIn group and the UIC Extranet and has been uploaded to the Extranet. Daria invited members to share pictures for the publication if they wish and to email her until the end of this week if they have any questions or comments.
ERA (European Union Agency for Railways), represented by Natalja Skacenko, gave an update on what ERA is doing to contribute, notably providing information to the European Commission (DG MOVE) to help monitor what is going on with regard to transport corridors. She added that ERA would be glad to receive any questions or issues from members and to address them in the best way possible.
DB, represented by Marita-Annegret Grosser, spoke about refugees from Ukraine in Germany, giving an update on what DB is doing to help provide information to refugees, information on bus services to France, and the launch of a job programme to enable refugees from Ukraine to work for DB.
A round table discussion then followed to discuss the current situation per impacted country and company with a particular focus on information exchange, the number of refugees arriving by train in each country, as well as the transport of freight. Updates were given, among others, from:
- Lithuania
- Denmark
- Germany
- Estonia
- Switzerland
- Czech Republic
- Belgium
- Italy
- France
- Sweden
- Spain
Marc Guigon concluded by thanking the participants for attending the meeting and reminded members that as long as there is a need for members around the table to discuss these issues, the UIC Refugee Task Force will continue to arrange regular meetings. He invited members to read the document presented by Daria Kardel in the UIC Extranet as soon as possible.
Members are encouraged to share their thoughts, either by writing to the internal UIC Refugee Task Force team refugees@uic.org or by posting in the UIC Extranet dedicated workspace.
A Task Force LinkedIn group is open to members. Feel free to join the group and share your thoughts: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/14061600/
A dedicated webpage of the Refugee Task Force is available on the UIC website: https://uic.org/refugees/
The next Task Force Refugee web-conference is scheduled to take place on Friday 6 May 2022.
