The European Transport Ministers, meeting in Luxembourg on Tuesday 18 June, adopted their negotiating position (‘general approach’) on the new regulation on the use of railway capacity (see EUROPE 13429/6).
“This directive aims to increase the availability of rail infrastructure through better planning and capacity allocation processes, improved performance monitoring and better cross-border coordination”, said Georges Gilkinet, Belgian Deputy Prime Minister and Federal Minister for Mobility, during the public debate.
In its position, the Council has simplified the planning and allocation processes in order to reduce the administrative workload for the competent authorities and operational players involved. It has taken into account aspects relating to national security and defence.
Member States would have greater flexibility in defining general objectives and policy guidelines for rail capacity management. The established mechanisms have been replaced to strengthen coordination between Member States. The performance of infrastructure managers and railway undertakings will not be monitored by a new entity. Infrastructure managers from certain third countries will be able to become members of the European network, without voting rights.
Nevertheless, Magda Kopczyńska, Director General for Mobility and Transport at the European Commission, shared her concerns. In her view, the ‘general approach’ allows Member States to give prescriptive guidance to managers on how much capacity to allocate to different types of traffic, “which could overwrite the new planning and allocation cycle, thus depriving it of its purpose”. Binding guidelines on how to resolve conflicts between individual requests would reinforce national approaches. “This is contrary to the objective of ensuring greater harmonisation within the single European railway area”, she argued.
“Lower penalties for infrastructure managers and less scrutiny of their performance can lead to inefficiency and, ultimately, higher costs for national budgets”, she also noted.
Interinstitutional negotiations with the new European Parliament can begin under the Hungarian Presidency of the EU Council, which starts on Monday 1 July.
Read the general approach: https://aeur.eu/f/cpw (Original version in French by Anne Damiani)