Brussels, 14/12/2012 (Agence Europe) - Poland, the Czech Republic, France, Slovenia and Luxembourg have been singled out by Advocate General Niilo Jaaskinen at the European Court of Justice for failure to properly liberalise their rail industry and keeping a national monopoly over “essential functions,” thus breaking the EU rail transport directives.
The five countries have not outsourced “essential functions” like issuing rail licences for running transport services, hiving off railtrack and infrastructure and deciding on charges for use of the railway network. This infringes fair, non-discriminatory access to the full network guaranteed by EU Directives 91/440/EEC and 2001/15/EC.
The Advocate General observes that France and Slovenia have not implemented the performance scheme for railway undertakings and infrastructure managers which corresponds to the requirements of EU law. Jääskinen says that the Czech Republic should not put upper limits for the rail use charges and Slovenia, France and Luxembourg have failed to ensure the independence of bodies supplying rail transport services.
These conclusions are related to other measures taken by the European Commission in connection with rail transport against Hungary, Spain, Austria, Germany and Portugal. (MD/transl.fl)