UIC Statutory Meetings to be held from 26 – 27 June in the very place where governments decided to create an international railway organisation
The UIC statutory meetings to be held on 26 and 27 June in Portoroz, Slovenia (and close to Venice), at the kind invitation of Slovenian Railways SZ, will be of an exceptional nature and have a strong symbolic value. The Regional Assembly for Europe (RAE) on 26 June followed by the UIC Executive Board, and 84th General Assembly of the association on 27 June, will take place in the exact location where representatives of governments met in November 1921 at the international conference of Portorosa (now named Portoroz) on the Adriatic coast and decided to create an international organisation for railways.
The conference of Portorosa (Portoroz) was followed by a second international conference in April-May 1922 in Genoa, Italy, and in October 1922 the Constitutive Assembly of the UIC was held in Paris with participation of representatives of 46 railways from 27 including China and Japan and the Middle-East, as well as of the League of Nations. From this date and already in the following months, UIC membership grew continuously to the 240 members it has today from over 90 countries on all 5 continents. UIC continued activities throughout all international crises, with the exception of the Second World War.
The aim of UIC’s creation was to empower one single international association with the management of all specialised conferences and agreements dealing with to international railway operations.
The initial mission was to harmonise conditions for railway construction and operations for international traffic.
For UIC and the worldwide railway family, coming back to UIC’s place of birth in Portoroz at the kind invitation of our Slovenian Member SZ will provide a unique opportunity to pay tribute to the work achieved within the UIC’s international cooperation framework over the past 92 years and to the main results obtained in the cooperation activities with strong involvement of all members, from heads of railways to very specialised experts.
This will also be an opportunity to discuss in Portoroz the current and future orientations to develop and strengthen UIC’s role to successfully support all efforts of its members to improve effectiveness and competitiveness of rail transport at global level, for the benefit of markets and society as a whole.
Therefore an appeal is sent to all UIC Members, Presidents and CEOs to join the worldwide railway family for this very exceptional occasion in Portoroz.
Meeting there 92 years after the first steps of our association is a wonderful occasion to demonstrate to the world the strength and continuously renewed value of UIC, as well as its willingness to further influence the future developments of rail transport during the next decades, in particular through the Strategic Visions developed in close cooperation with each UIC Region.
To confirm your presence or for more information please contact Mrs Karine van Ceunebroeck, Senior Advisor at the UIC Institutional Relations Department: vanceunebroeck@uic.org
