The Council of the European Union is reportedly close to reaching an agreement on the new regulation on the use of rail capacity, with a view to adopting its negotiating position (‘general approach’) at the Transport Council meeting in Luxembourg on Tuesday 18 June.
Presented in July 2023 by the European Commission (see EUROPE 13220/21) as part of the legislative ‘package’ on the greening of freight, this text aims to change the way rail is managed and improve cross-border coordination.
“We believe that better European coordination in this area will make it possible to improve international rail transport activity, to stimulate the modal shift towards this type of transport, which is still a low emitter of greenhouse gases”, emphasised a European source contacted by Agence Europe on Tuesday 11 June.
According to this source, the Belgian Presidency has worked very hard to consider targeted exemptions that take into account certain specificities. France has asked for the Cross-Channel tunnel to be exempted. Estonia, Latvia and Finland, for their part, wanted defence and national security issues to be taken into account.
In addition, the Member States have expressed their desire to take account of the need to reduce the unnecessary administrative burden on infrastructure managers and to respect the powers of the national regulatory authorities.
Finally, the Member States have discussed voting rules within the European Rail Infrastructure Managers (EIM), which is responsible for monitoring various aspects of performance and producing annual public reports on performance. While some countries supported the principle of a single vote, others wanted a rule that was more representative of the differences in population and size of rail networks. “A compromise seems to be emerging”, said the source. This is expected to be agreed at the meeting of the Member States’ ambassadors to the EU (Coreper) on Wednesday 12 June.
For its part, the European Parliament has already approved its negotiating position (see EUROPE 13369/20). (Original version in French by Anne Damiani)