In his draft report for the revision of regulation 1371/2007 on the rights and obligations of railway passengers, Bogusław Liberadzki (S&D, Poland) suggests certain exceptions for railway companies from their responsibilities in the event of extraordinary circumstances or force majeure.
This proposal is more flexible than that of the European Commission presented on 28 September last according to which a railway operator would not be obliged to compensate passengers except when there is "severe weather conditions or major natural disasters" if there has not already been a refund on the ticket prices (see EUROPE 11872).
Liberadzki believes these provisions should be equivalent to those applied for other modes of transport and that force majeure and extraordinary circumstances should be taken into consideration.
The rapporteur is also suggesting rules for re-routing rights and compensation in cases of repeated delays of less than 60 minutes. He believes the provisions proposed by the Commission were overly binding.
The Commission is also proposing to scrap most of the exemption regimes included in this regulation that allow the member states to apply the regulation in a very sparing way up until 2024 when the new text enters into force.
In this regard, Liberadzki is proposing that long-distance domestic journeys may still fall under these exemptions until 2024. According to the latter, most of the member states concerned by these exemptions are in Central and Eastern Europe and the historic context does not allow for the full application of the provisions in the current regulation.
The rapporteur is also suggesting that international journeys between Union and third countries are completely excluded from the regulation’s scope of application. He considers that an EU operator should not be responsible for the services and infrastructure of a third-party undertaking.
Liberadzki suggests several amendments to protect disabled passenger or those with reduced mobility. For example, assistance free of charge would be included for this category of passenger when notification of the journey is provided 24 hours beforehand (as opposed to 48 hours in the Commission proposal). The rapporteur also explains in what cases this kind of passenger can be compensated when their mobility assistance equipment has been damaged by rail operators. (Original version in French by Lucas Tripoteau)