Commission to present new "rail package", on 23 January, proposing liberalisation of national goods transport and postponing liberalisation of international passenger transport

Brussels, 14/01/2002 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission is to present, on 23 January, a communication proposing five new legislative measures for the "integration of rail transport" in Europe, including the opening up to competition of national goods transport ("cabotage"), new safety measures and technical harmonisation measures, as well as the creation of a European Rail Safety Agency. The proposed text, being studied by Commission services, also announces future proposals for the opening up of international passenger transport to competition; beginning with night trains and high-speed trains.

This new "rail package" will arrive on the Council table less than one year after the adoption of the "infrastructure package", which organises the liberalisation of international goods transport by rail as of 2003 on a trans-European rail freight network, and in 2008 over the whole of the international network. According to sources close to Transport Commissioner Loyola de Palacio, the aim of this new package is to "complete opening of the energy and transport markets, in accordance with the Lisbon Summit mandate, while seizing the opportunity provided by the Spanish Presidency, which is ready to move forward on this issue". The aim would be to reach a declaration at the Barcelona Summit, devoted to economic reform. The declaration would launch work for the Danish and Greek Presidencies to follow. "The package is a balanced one and constitutes the following phase of the agreement concluded in 2001", assure sources close to the Commissioner. In practice, the package includes proposals on harmonisation of the rules for safety and interoperability that had been called for by France, and continued liberalisation to which it had been firmly opposed during negotiations on the first rail package.

The series of proposals caused, however, a certain apprehension on France's part. For now, criticism has been of a technical kind: "in full transposition period, amending directives that have only just been adopted could create legal instability and it is somewhat dangerous to bring into question an agreement that has been obtained with such difficulty" in Council and in the context of the conciliation procedure with Parliament, says a French diplomat. Spain, which has placed the liberalisation of "network industries" among the priorities of its Council Presidency, "could drive the point home during the Barcelona Summit", it is feared on the French side.

The main lines of the new rail freight package concern:

• Liberalisation of cabotage: The draft communication provides for "all established operators holding a license to operate in the European Union to have guaranteed access to the infrastructure network for national and international transport from the date when the directive takes effect". Not surprisingly, the main argument to support this proposal is that the opening up to competition will make it possible to improve the quality of the service. "Access by non-national operators to the rail freight networks for national freight services is already possible in several Member States, such as Austria, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom. The experience of opening up to competition and innovation is generally positive", say the authors of the communication. They also noted that the opening up of cabotage will allow journeys made by empty trains used for international freight transport to be avoided.
• Rail safety: The Commission is to propose a directive on rail safety covering four points: 1) the creation in each Member State of an authority responsible for safety inspections and the setting in place of a mutual recognition mechanism for new safety norms; 2) the mutual recognition of safety certificates issued in Member States; 3) the creation of common security indicators to ensure the transparency of regulatory decisions; and 4) the definition of common rules for safety inquiries conducted after accidents, and the creation of independent inquiry bodies.
• Interoperability: The Commission will propose amendments to the directives on technical harmonisation for high-speed trains (adopted in 1996) and conventional trains (adopted in 2001), essentially in order to speed up implementation of these norms, which has hitherto been extremely slow. The changes will also allow modernisation of the directive on TGV interoperability and will encourage its implementation through the financing of trans-European networks.
• European Rail Agency for safety and interoperability: A new Regulation would create an agency to coordinate the preparation of texts provided for under the Directive on Rail Safety, and would pilot the implementation of interoperability norms. The Agency will not have power of autonomous decision-making, states the draft communication. The technical work would be prepared by experts of the organisations representing the sector. The draft communication also provides for consultation of social partners and representatives of rail transport customers. The annual budget of the agency would account for "less than 0.6%" of the some EUR 2.6 billion spent by the Community each year to finance rail projects, states the Communication.
• EU membership of OTIF. The Communication recommends that the EU join the Intergovernmental Organisation for International Carriage by rail (OTIF) and its Convention on international rail transport, amended by the Vilnius Protocol in June 1999 (COTIF). Forty-one states have signed the Convention for uniform rules for freight and passenger transport. The draft Communication notes, however, that Member States can no longer ratify the Vilnius Protocol independently of the Community institutions, given that various measures come exclusively under EU powers. The utility of the EU's joining the COTIF is reinforced by the fact that a fair number of current OTIF members will soon be joining the EU.

In the second half of the Communication, the Commission is expected to put forward a dozen areas to be considered with a view to making the rail market more dynamic and improving quality, such as the gradual opening of international rail transport to competition. This is a controversial issue but the draft Communication jumps in by calling for gradual liberalisation, starting with night transport (less than 20% of international rail travel) and then all international services, including long-distance and high-speed routes, followed by full opening of the remaining international services to competition, including the option of cabotage. In parallel, the Communication suggests a regulation on passenger rights covering areas such as contracts, information, dispute settlement and compensation for delays. Incorporating proposals from the infrastructure package that were rejected by the Council, the areas of consideration propose giving more bidders access to freight networks rather than restricting this to licensed rail operators.

The Communication also suggests ways of cutting train noise pollution and improving service quality. The authors note that according to the investigations, one of the main causes of passenger dissatisfaction with rail services was the mediocre and ever-falling levels of quality. Reproducing data given in a report by the UIRR (International Union of Combined Rail-Road Transport Companies), it points out that delays in excess of three hours shot up from 17% in 1999 to 32% in the first half of 2001, while delays of more than 30 minutes rose from 40% to 58% and the number of trains arriving on time fell from 60% to 42%.