On the occasion of the EU-India Leaders' Meeting in Porto and via video conference, the EU and India have concluded a comprehensive Connectivity Partnership, confirming their commitment to collaborate on supporting resilient and sustainable connectivity both in India and in third countries and regions.

The EU-India Connectivity Partnership is the second such partnership. EU-India Connectivity Partnership covers cooperation in the digital, energy, transport, and people-to-people sectors. It is fundamentally rooted in support for the twin digital and green transitions, adherence to and development of international standards, as well as the shared norms and values of social, environmental, economic and fiscal sustainability and level playing field.

Cybersecurity is crucial in today’s world, as our society increasingly relies on connected infrastructure and devices. In the field of railways, connected trains and infrastructure are seen as a major source of improvement for the management of traffic and capacity, energy efficiency, and network communication. But this trend also means more potential threats of cyber-attacks. To protect the rolling stock and fixed installations, the support of adequate tools and requirements is needed.

CENELEC contributes to providing this protection with the brand new CLC/TS 50701 ‘Railway applications – Cybersecurity’ developed by ‘CLC/TC 9X - Electrical and electronic applications for railways’.

This Technical Specification is a major landmark for the European railway sector, as it aims to provide requirements and recommendations to handle cybersecurity in a unified way for the railway sector.

Many initiatives have been launched both at national and European level to achieve the European objectives for climate and energy by 2030 and for the Paris Agreement. One of these is now a reference about environmental policies and governmental actions: CEN Workshop Agreement 17675 ‘Mapping of the mandatory and voluntary Carbon Management framework in the EU’. Published last 17 March, it is based on  proposal by UNI, the Italian National Standardization Body, that involved European companies such as JRC, ADEME, CLEOPA, in addition to other National Standardization Bodies such as DIN and BSI.
The document collects the regulatory (voluntary) and legislative (mandatory) tools existing in Europe for carbon management, clarifying the relationships and increasing their synergy, in order to maximise the effectiveness of the mitigation actions of greenhouse gases (GHG), facilitating adaptation to climate change and making the path established by EU policies interacting with market dynamics.

EMPIR MeterEMI project has released a report on current waveforms for static meter testing. In the report on the selection of recommended test waveforms for meters, in which is explained the rationale for the waveforms and methods used to accurately and efficiently specify these waveforms.  In summary:

• Most recommended waveforms are based on recordings on-site at real meter connection points. The waveforms have been simplified using a set of parameters, so they can be written down accurately and efficiently, suitable for inclusion in a future standard.

• All recommended simplified waveforms have been generated on an arbitrary-waveform testbed and several produce gross meter errors on “faulty” meters similar to the original on-site recordings.