The group, chaired by SNCB, took note of the results of the questionnaire sent to railway companies on the organisation of security, and the relations and partnerships between law enforcement bodies, internal security services where they exist, and private security providers and firms.

The aim of this analysis is, in particular, to identify areas of consistency that meet the requirements of Article 26 of European Regulation 1371/2007, which establishes a right to security for railway passengers.

Furthermore, the group debated the prospects of the decision taken by the European Commission on 31 May 2012 regarding the creation of an expert group on land transport security at member state level, and regarding the Staff Working Document from the same date to establish similar groups of experts at stakeholder level. The initial meetings of these groups are scheduled to be held on 30 January and 5 February 2013 respectively. Depending on the outcome of these two meetings, the strategy and regulation groups will organise the necessary work in collaboration with potential external partners such as CER, EIM, UITP, ERFA, etc.

Finally Eurostar and Thalys brought up specific coordination issues in cases where there have been security problems in some of the countries concerned. A workshop will be organised in the next few weeks with each of these parties to help the group define solutions during its next meeting in March 2013 to put forward to the relevant national authorities in order to resolve these difficulties.

All relevant information is available in the Security section of the UIC Extranet, in the working group’s own restricted workspace.

Link to the COMMISSION DECISION of 31 May 2012 on the creation of an Expert Group on Land Transport Security: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2012:142:0047:0048:EN:PDF