On Tuesday 8 October, the Council of the European Union’s Working Party on Transport – Intermodal Questions and Networks discussed the concept of multimodal platform managers, which is included in the proposed revision of the regulation on passenger rights (see EUROPE 13495/5).
According to a European source contacted the following day, in a ‘non-paper’, five Member States have suggested departing from the current proposal to establish multimodal platform managers. “They [suggested] building on existing structures, to delegate the responsibilities originally assigned to such managers to the terminal managers of already existing terminals”, explained the source.
Other Member States were generally in favour of this simplification. However, they pointed out that further reflection would be needed on who would decide and how as to which terminals would be subject to the new obligations, how would the responsibilities and obligation to cooperate be organised and enforced, etc.
“The European Commission remained open to this suggestion and pointed out that the initial proposal went beyond multimodal journeys when it set out the obligations of multimodal platform managers”, reported the source. In its view, it would therefore be desirable to retain this broader scope of obligations. Clarity for passengers and the high level of protection of passenger rights should thus be preserved.
Delegations will be able to submit their written comments until Thursday 10 October. The Hungarian Presidency will begin incorporating the ideas into the new compromise proposal, which will be discussed by the working group on Tuesday 22 October. (Original version in French by Anne Damiani)