Brussels, 15/10/2013 (Agence Europe) - It is going to be a tough job for the rapporteurs on the 4th railway package to manage to reconcile the different views of their colleagues at the European Parliament's transport committee (TRAN). This is going to be particularly difficult with regard to the structure of the railway companies and the public service obligation when domestic rail passenger transport markets are opened up. On Monday 14 October, the TRAN committee examined the amendments that had already been submitted to the six draft reports making up the railway package.
No fewer than 540 of them involve the draft report by Saïd El Khadroui (S&D, Belgium) on rail infrastructure governance. A lot of these amendments focus on the structure of railway companies and whether the infrastructure manager and service operator should be separate. The Greens are calling for an integrated structure to be maintained in an effort to promote synergies, while the Conservatives and Liberals and certain Christian Democrats are more supportive of the European Commission proposals advocating complete separation. The rapporteur noted that it was essential to avoid any dogmatic temptations and promised to be pragmatic when it came to finding the middle way. In addition 382 amendments were submitted to the report by Mathieu Grosch (EPP, Belgium) on opening up the national railway passenger transport markets. He explained that the majority of them sought to improve the text but that he would not take into account anything that had been removed from the draft itself. Debates by the MEPs are being fuelled by the direct allocation threshold for public service contracts based on the number of trains-kilometres (35,000 as opposed to10,000 in the Commission proposal), as well as the postponement of the transposition of the directive till 2029 (instead of 2019, as advocated in the Commission proposal). The rapporteur intends to find a compromise on this subject as soon as possible. The vote on the 4th Railway package is planned for 26 November. The chairman of the TRAN committee, Brian Simpson (S&D, United Kingdom), explained that this timetable would be very difficult, although very much less so for the technical pillar because they knew where they wanted to go with this. With regard to the question of the public service obligation when opening up the markets, Simpson concluded that it was an entirely different kettle of fish. (MD/trans.fl)