At the invitation of German contractors, second within a period of less than two years, the EFRTC hold its autumn General meeting in Berlin on 20th November 2009.

The participants were welcomed by Dr Hans – M. SCHABERT, CEO and Chairman of the Management Board of Leonhard-Weiss GmbH & Co. who took the part at EFRTC General Meeting for the first time as the newly appointed member of the EFRTC Board. On behalf of German contractors he thanked for accepting the invitation to meet in Berlin at that exciting time of celebration of 20 years since fall of Berlin wall.

Following warm welcome, the EFRTC President, Mr Fernando Silva SANTOS delivered his welcome and opening address.
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The meeting agenda dealt with in the first part with statutory issues, reports from the EFRTC Committees Chairmen, Working Groups and Secretary General.

The GM approved the budget 2010 and new EFRTC statute. Further the GM took note of the Committee’s Chairmen reports. A mention should be made at least to the following issues of their reporting, namely

• outcome of EFRTC meeting with ERA on cross-acceptance of track machines, staff and works with presence of IM representatives of CER/EIM, Industry-UNIFE and Chairmanship of CEN JRPC and TC256/SC1
• implementation of Directive 2004/57/EC on European driving licence and ERA recommendations from 2009 to the format of driving licence for operators and drivers of track machines
• excellent rate of responses to the Safety Questionnaire by all EFRT members enabling to make further progress in the work of Safety and Security Committee
• kick-off meeting of joint EIM/CER/EFRTC on Harmonization of procurement procedures
• and many other activities related to policy and research issues as well as standardisation works including EFRTC participation in ERRAC and CEN.

In the second part, UNIFE Director General, Mr Michael Clausecker presented latest developments on EC policy and regulatory framework in the rail sector.
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Further, Mr Andreas Busemann, on behalf of host Infrastructure Manager, delivered a very interesting presentation about the management of German railway infrastructure with focus on presenting DB integrated maintenance and renewal strategy, technology and network development.
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As a result of self-assessment of quality of GM asking for placing on the agenda the presentations closer to contractor’s core business the presentation of Nick van den Hurk was included to this part of the GM as an example of asset management and condition based maintenance outsourced by Infrastructure Manager – ProRail to contractor-VolkerRail.
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A very interesting afternoon session was arranged by German contractors focused on procurement strategy as seen by client and contractor completed by an overview of the recent major railway construction projects in Germany.

Mr Sascha Pantel on behalf of Mr Uwe Günther, Head of the Procurement Dept. Civil Engineering from DB Mobility Network Logistics presented DB strategy in railway infrastructure procurement.
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Some examples of major construction works on German network, namely Berlin Central Railway Station (Berlin HauptBahnhof former Lehrter Bhf), the New “Ostkreuz” and Oder bridge were presented by Dr Katharina Klemt-Albert, Head of the DB Infrastructure Projects.
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Contractors’ position to procurement and outsourcing specific to German market was but also sometimes experienced by other contractors was presented by Mr Manfred Wacker, Director of HEITKAMP
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Aim of the session to encourage a discussion in an interactive way was proved by a number of questions posed to the speakers.

The Chairman thanked to all speakers for their presentations and to all participants contributing to the success of the meeting. He expressed its particularly high gratitude for an excellent organisation of the meeting by German contractors and in particular to three companies - Leonhard-Weiss, Spitzke and Heitkamp for sponsoring the events of the GM framework programme.