VAP General Assembly of 19 August 2022

Our Gene­ral Assem­bly made it clear: 2050 is fast approa­ching. On site and vir­tual­ly, num­e­rous VAP mem­bers and guests fol­lo­wed the sta­tu­to­ry part with a memo­rable ope­ning speech by Pre­si­dent Josef Ditt­li. A spe­cial high­light was the speech by Fede­ral Coun­cil­lor Simo­net­ta Som­ma­ru­ga on the importance of rail freight trans­port for Switzerland.

Gene­ral assem­bly, asso­cia­ti­on, freight trans­port – after these words most peo­p­le are men­tal­ly gone. Today, rea­ding on is recom­men­ded. Becau­se on the occa­si­on of our gene­ral assem­bly, it was not only about sta­tu­to­ry mat­ters of the ship­ping indus­try. In her guest speech, Fede­ral Coun­cil­lor Simo­net­ta Som­ma­ru­ga gave a note­wor­t­hy signal to the logi­stics indus­try: «For the Fede­ral Coun­cil it is clear: we want to fur­ther streng­then the poten­ti­al that rail has for freight transport.»

Memorable things about then, today and the day after tomorrow

The ope­ning speech by VAP Pre­si­dent Josef Ditt­li gave the par­ti­ci­pan­ts valuable food for thought about ever­y­thing that was, is and should be in rail freight trans­port. He said that rail freight had play­ed a major role in ensu­ring that Switz­er­land sur­vi­ved Coro­na wit­hout any dama­ge in terms of sup­p­ly, becau­se rou­tes with litt­le pas­sen­ger traf­fic sud­den­ly allo­wed it to ope­ra­te as it should be able to in nor­mal times. Ditt­li descri­bed the digi­tal auto­ma­tic cou­pler as the epi­to­me of digi­tal trans­for­ma­ti­on in rail freight trans­port, becau­se it stands for the kind of inno­va­ti­ve fur­ther deve­lo­p­ment that we urgen­tly need. For exam­p­le, so that all freight rail­ways can estab­lish coope­ra­ti­ve and fle­xi­ble net­work trans­port across the board tog­e­ther and wit­hout dis­ad­van­ta­ge. The Pre­si­dent looks to Euro­pe with con­cern. In his opi­ni­on, Switz­er­land must not miss the con­nec­tion to the Euro­pean rail­way sec­tor and the EU inno­va­ti­on pro­gram­mes under any circumstances.

• Down­load the pre­si­den­ti­al address by Josef Ditt­li (in german)
• Watch the video of the pre­si­den­ti­al address

Landmark decision imminent

We were very plea­sed that the Minis­ter of Trans­port, Simo­net­ta Som­ma­ru­ga, agreed to give a guest speech at our Gene­ral Assem­bly. In her speech, she empha­sis­ed that the Con­fe­de­ra­ti­on wants to fur­ther streng­then the rail­ways and pay more atten­ti­on to dome­stic trans­port, which is also of great importance for the sup­p­ly of Switzerland.

“We must impro­ve and fur­ther deve­lop the sys­tem,” said the head of DETEC. She said that the Fede­ral Coun­cil would send a bill on this sub­ject for con­sul­ta­ti­on in the autumn. “We are facing a ground­brea­king decis­i­on. That is why we should not lose sight of what is the reci­pe for Switzerland’s suc­cess, what has always made our coun­try strong: That we tack­le the neces­sa­ry chan­ges best tog­e­ther, that we take respon­si­bi­li­ty tog­e­ther: Rail­ways, indus­try and, of cour­se, the Con­fe­de­ra­ti­on.” The VAP is happy to respond to her invi­ta­ti­on to invol­ve our­sel­ves in the dis­cour­se, not least with its con­tri­bu­ti­on to the dis­cus­sion “Rail Freight Traf­fic 2050″ and the film “Cus­to­mer-ori­en­ted, Inno­va­ti­ve, Pro­fi­ta­ble – Rail Freight Trans­port of the Future”.

• Down­load guest speech by Fede­ral Coun­cil­lor Simo­net­ta Sommaruga
• Watch the video of the guest speech

Elections successfully held

Of the items on the agen­da that were put to the vote in the sta­tu­to­ry part, all were accept­ed. We wel­co­me the fol­lo­wing new mem­bers to the Board: Titus Büt­ler, Bern­hard Hoff­mann, Bern­hard Kunz. We con­gra­tu­la­te all of them on their elec­tion or re-elec­tion and look for­ward to a con­s­truc­ti­ve coope­ra­ti­on in the Board.