The discussions on the revision of Regulation 1371/2007 on rail passengers' rights and obligations on Wednesday 20 June at the European Parliament’s transport committee, were particularly heated.
This was because the presentation by Bogusław Liberadzki (S&D, Poland), the rapporteur on this dossier, involved different compromise amendments to those previously negotiated with the other political groups.
It should be recalled that this report is part of the European Commission's September 2017 proposal for enhancing the application of the current regulation (see EUROPE 11872).
Wim Van de Camp (EPP, Netherlands), speaking on behalf of Renaud Muselier (EPP, France), expressed the “surprise” of the latter because at the end of the negotiators' meeting on 12 June, it appeared that compromises had been reached.
According to Mr Muselier and Jens Rohde (ALDE, Denmark), 8 of the 20 compromise amendments submitted to MEPs on Wednesday did not correspond to the results of the negotiations. Mr Rohde highlighted the “lack of will” displayed by Mr Liberadzki to overcome the political opposition and regretted that the rapporteur does “not want to respect” the majority positions on the different key points.
Several questions, particularly those on ticket reimbursement modalities in the event of delays, the “single ticket” and transporting bicycles on board trains still need to be discussed by the political groups.
The vote initially planned for Thursday 21 June has therefore been postponed (see EUROPE 12044). Although no new date has been arranged, Michael Cramer (Greens/ EFA, Germany) and Mr Van de Camp called for this vote to take place before the summer break, therefore at the beginning of July. (Original version in French by Lucas Tripoteau)