Brussels, 31/08/2015 (Agence Europe) - With regard to railway safety, few concrete measures were announced at the end of the meeting set up between nine European transport ministers in Paris on Saturday 29 August after the failed attack on the high speed Thalys train.
These measures will be discussed at the LANDSEC meeting (the group of experts specialised in land transport safety) on 11 September (see EUROPE 11375).
“There was no real breakthrough on Saturday, but the important point of the meeting was the resolve to be careful and to give a measured and proportionate response”, the European institutions said. This was an attitude that the European Commission had adopted following the failed attack on 21 August, as European Commissioner for Transport Violeta Bulc stated on 29 August. “The security and safety of passengers is our top priority. At the same time, it would not be wise to over-react. It is crucial that public transport remains as easily accessible as possible”, Bulc said.
According to a European source, the LANDSEC expert group is the most suitable framework for taking cross-border measures for high speed train lines. The Commission nevertheless seems to approve of the French initiative to deal with the issue at intergovernmental level initially. This initiative is not of the same level of interest for all member states - with some countries indeed being deprived of high speed lines or railways networks.
During the meeting in Paris, the Commission wanted to advance its own interests on the issue of a more systematic use of video-surveillance cameras on high speed trains (running at over 160 km/hr), on the implementation of marshalls on trains (as already happens in the air sector) - for example, by training railway staff - and on setting up differentiated control arrangements according to the degree of risk when boarding a train.
However, the measures sketched out by France's Minister of the Interior Bernard Cazeneuve on 29 August seem to show that the Commission was only partially heard. Cazeneuve announced that, in agreement with the interior and transport ministers of the nine member states invited, mixed patrols would be established on the basis of RAILPOL - the current European network of railway police forces.
Other measures mentioned include checking the identity of passengers, visual inspection and baggage control “when this is needed”. Making these controls systematic could indeed be considered as a border control, someone from the Commission stated. This arrangement would be linked with generalising named tickets for international long distance trains. Cazeneuve also spoke about using new technology controls. Some experts mentioned the existence of wall scanners that could examine groups of people in one go, as well as the content of their baggage. In addition, the Commission again said that it was not possible to apply exactly the same system as used for air safety, as each mode of transport has its own specificities.
As well as the extraordinary meeting of LANDSEC (the ninth meeting of which was initially planned for 4 November), Bulc and Luxembourg's Minister for Transport François Bausch plan to put rail safety on the agenda of the next Transport Council on 8 October - an agenda which will also include the political pillar of the fourth railway package (see EUROPE 11333). (Pascal Hansens)