Brussels, 22/02/2012 (Agence Europe) - Germany is believed, last week, to have set out its position with regard to the European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS), and especially its calculation of the costs involved, for the European Commission. This follows a letter sent by European Transport Commissioner Siim Kallas to German Transport Minister Peter Ramsauer (see EUROPE 10557). The commissioner called for a compromise to be found so that rail interoperability might be achieved through the use of one single monitoring system, the ERTMS. He offered assistance for Germany so that it could meet its commitment to use the system, though Ramsauer had, at the end of 2011, indicated his preference for an alternative, and less costly, system - the STM. Infringement proceedings could be opened if Germany does not agree to abide by its commitments.
Thus far, the letter from the commissioner to Ramsauer has brought no change in German rhetoric. Without fully closing the door to the ERTMS, Germany would prefer to equip existing material with the alternative STM system and use the ERTMS on the four rail corridors crossing the country, and only in the construction of new infrastructure or renewal of material, in line with a domestic decision in principle taken in June of last year. The German authorities argue that the STM option would still allow the required level of interoperability to be reached by 2015, but less expensively than the ERTMS.
So that the Commission has all the information needed to understand the German position and be in full possession of the facts, the German authorities sent a letter last week to the Directorate General at the Commission, DG MOVE, detailing, in particular, the cost to the German network of investing in the ERTMS. Commission and German estimates are widely divergent - the Commission says €2.5 billion and Germany €4 billion. Clearly this will have to be resolved. Commissioner Kallas hopes to meet and discuss the situation with the German minister at an inter-ministerial meeting in Copenhagen on 16 April, the day before a conference on the ERTMS organised by the Danish Presidency of the EU Council of Ministers. (MD/transl.rt)