Completing the planned TEN-T high speed network will require an estimated €345bn in infrastructure investment, and one year into the European Commission's high speed rail action plan, industry leaders say the money is the easy part. The binding constraint, they told an InnoTrans 2026 discussion, is certainty: stable network commitments, predictable certification and harmonised technical specifications.

"We can find the money", said Luigi Corradi, CEO of FS International. "The problem is to make sure that this investment is stable." His point cuts both ways: capital exists, but an operator ordering trains cannot be sure the network those trains depend on will exist when they arrive. "If we buy the train, we have to be sure we can have the network then", Corradi said, "because there is a risk that we put a lot of money into the train and then don't have the network we need."

The Commission launched the action plan on 5 November 2025, targeting a faster, more integrated high speed network by 2040 as part of what it calls a genuine single EU transport market. It expects binding timelines for cross-border bottlenecks by 2027, alongside measures on track access, rolling stock approvals, ticketing and ERTMS, plus a proposed High Speed Rail Deal to mobilise private capital.

Pedro Marco de la Peña, Chairman of Spanish infrastructure manager ADIF, argued that the traditional technical barriers to cross-border running no longer hold. "All the technological issues, those challenges are over", he said. Spain has built Europe's largest ERTMS deployment, with more than 3 000 route-km in operation. Gauge differences, electrical systems and regulatory divergence are, in his words, solved problems. "You have a lot of excuses to do nothing. A lot", he added. "But all the arguments are over. You just have to do it."

The failure, he argued, becomes visible at the frontier. "You arrive at the border and it seems that you are in the Kalahari." Spanish high speed lines currently meet French conventional routes with less capacity than the envisaged European network requires. His remedy: "commitment, real commitment from the countries", backed by mandatory EU supervision — a remark directed at the ERA and Commission representatives on the panel.

Fragmentation persists even within a single technology. ERTMS exists in both France and Italy, Corradi noted, yet international trains still carry four signalling systems, including different ERTMS versions on each side of the border. FS has nonetheless built an international passenger business generating around €3bn across six European markets, with high speed operations in France and Spain and planned expansion into Germany, Austria, Belgium and the UK. Corradi wants those operations under one strategy — a "Metro of Europe" with a common service proposition and simpler ticketing. Demand is proven: the Milano–Paris service, which he initially doubted would attract passengers for a 7 h 30 min journey, now records an average load factor of 83%.

Certification remains the hardest test. The Hitachi-built Frecciarossa 1000 was designed for seven European networks, yet 16 years after the first order in 2010, FS is still completing approvals — and certification in a single country can cost more than €10m. For new entrants the effect is sharper. Laurent Fourtune, Founder & CEO of French operator Kevin Speed, said investors asking when a train will be certified face answers ranging from eight months to eight years once route compatibility is included. "This is a killer for private investment", he said. "There will not be any private investment if there is no reliability, stability in the way we can homologate." He suggested governments share certification risk, citing the repayable launch investment model used for the Airbus A320.

Suppliers face the same uncertainty. Nicolas Erb, European Affairs Director at Alstom, pointed to around €150m invested in additional high speed production capacity while warning that European testing remains "extremely burdensome and time consuming". "As a supplier you need to have confidence that the market is there", he said.

ERA Executive Director Oana Gherghinescu closed with three commitments: support greater standardisation and scale; stabilise technical specifications — "freeze them and allow breathing space for all of you here… but also for investors"; and accompany ERTMS deployment so Europe stops accumulating what she called its "accents, the dialects, the versions and the variants". In exchange, she expects operators to buy standardised platform trains rather than national variants: "No tailored requirements", beyond the "colour of the seats".

Magda Kopczyńska, head of the Commission's transport directorate DG Move, put the cost of the 2040 network at €354bn to €540bn — figures she joked she was reluctant to test against inflation. A financing strategy is being developed with member states, operators and private financial institutions. Her framing of the end goal is unambiguous: "It has to be one high speed rail network that works according to the same set of specifications, because otherwise we'll never get the scale that is needed."

With the harmonised ERTMS deployment plan, a cross-border ticketing proposal and a revised ERA authorisation mandate all due in 2026, the coming year will show whether the stability the industry demands materialises on the timetable the Commission has set.