Negotiators of the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union failed on Tuesday 23 June to reach agreement on the revision of Regulation (1371/2007) on rail passengers’ rights and obligations, thus dashing the hopes of the Croatian Presidency of the EU Council to reach a provisional agreement before the end of June (see EUROPE 12496/32).
Germany, which will take over the reins in a few days’ time, will therefore be responsible for organising new inter-institutional negotiations in trilogue.
According to information obtained by EUROPE, this Tuesday’s meeting - which was held without the Transport Commissioner, Adina Vălean - did not allow any progress to be made.
Stakeholders only advanced their positions, in particular on sensitive issues such as scope, bicycles in trains (see EUROPE 12434/8), compensation, extraordinary circumstances (see EUROPE 12138/7), re-routing, single tickets or access to trains for people with disabilities.
On the last point, a petition carried out by the European Disability Forum (EDF), with 60,000 signatures, was sent in mid-June to the European Parliament’s chief negotiator, Bogusław Liberadzki (S&D, Poland). It insists on the need to abolish the prior notification required to benefit from train travel assistance services, a move supported by MEPs (see EUROPE 12094/26, 12438/26).
The regulation currently in force obliges persons with reduced mobility wishing to have access to these services to contact the train operators up to two days in advance.
Denouncing “effective discrimination” against people with reduced mobility, prevented from taking the train for urgent journeys, EDF stresses that “this change of the law is also necessary to advance EU’s compliance with the UN Convention on the Rights with Disabilities”, which entered into force in the EU in 2011. (Original version in French by Agathe Cherki)