Brussels, 21/01/2013 (Agence Europe) - The European Rail Freight Association (ERFA) is losing patience at the repeated delays in the fourth railway package. Announced for the end of 2012, then for the end of January, the package is now apparently expected for the beginning of February. ERFA sees this delay as a breach in the European democratic process, and also the German one, and it urges the European Commission to publish the original version of the railway package as quickly as possible. This fourth railway package promises the liberalisation of domestic passenger traffic, and the separation of railway entities.
In a press release on Monday 21 January, ERFA highlights that further postponing the legislative proposal exposes it to a procedure which will be upset by the parliamentary elections in 2014. Such a scenario would offer delayed application to those who oppose the railway reform.
ERFA also lambasts the intensive lobbying - particularly from Berlin, as reported by German press at the end of last week - to block this reform (see EUROPE 10767). Instead of putting pressure on the Commission, Berlin should rather put pressure on its railway operator and allow the Parliament to establish a railway policy, ERFA states. Another area of democratic deficit which ERFA points out is that this pressure sweeps aside both the Commission's right of initiative and the Parliament's role of co-legislator: “Short-circuiting the European Parliament in trying to block the publication of the fourth railway package after it has been circulated amongst the commissioners is indeed a major breach in the European democratic process”. After the first meeting of the College of Commissioners at the beginning of January, the Commission, indeed, found wide consensus among the commissioners in support of the intentions of European Commissioner for Transport Siim Kallas. It would now seem that this is no longer entirely the case, and that Kallas will have to review some points of the file. (MD/transl.fl)