Brussels, 28/03/2003 (Agence Europe) - Friday's Transport Council reached a political agreement after qualified majority vote on a common position relating to the second rail package. Belgium, France and Luxembourg voted against the common position which decides to open international rail freight up to competition on 1 January 2006. The liberalisation of passenger transport on 1 January 2008, proposed in first reading by the European Parliament, was not approved by Council. However, the European Commission undertook to make a legislative proposal in this respect at the end of 2003. The European Parliament should give its stance in second reading (codecision) on this common position.
The Council's political agreement provides for speeding up liberalisation of international freight that will be opened to competition on 1 January 2006 instead of 15 March 2008. The opening of freight cabotage (a Member State rail company ensuring goods transport between two internal connections of another State) will be on 1 January 2008, unless an opinion to the contrary is received from the Commission when it gives its assessment report, on 1 January 2007. The report (to be submitted to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and to the Committee of the Regions) will assess: - implementation of the legislative package by the Member States; - the sharing of the rail freight market between European companies; - the impact on the level of security in each Member States; - the working conditions of rail workers. On the basis of these results, the Commission could make recommendations or proposals for developing the rail market. Finally, a Member States wishing to adopt better security measures than those proposed by the Commission should, before this, consult all interested parties and inform the Commission which, in turn, will submit the project to the Committee foreseen by the Proposal. This procedure aims to avoid discrimination and the protection of national monopolies are covered by better security measures. Nonetheless, the Commission indicates in an interpretative declaration that this procedure does not organise a prior approval regime. Furthermore, the Commission will add a declaration to the legislative package indicating that it supports the work carried out in the context of the European social dialogue on driving and rest periods for rail workers and that it has the intention to make a legislative proposal to introduce European licenses for rail drivers by end 2003 at the latest.
The second rail package includes four proposals: a proposal of directive relating to the development of the Community rail system, a proposal of directive concerning the safety of rail transport, a proposal of regulation establishing the European Rail Agency and a proposal of directive on the interoperability of the trans-European rail system.
France, Belgium and Luxembourg are opposed to the political agreement
Despite their persistence, France, Belgium and Luxembourg did not win the day for postponing the decision concerning opening up international rail freight transport to competition. During the public debate before the vote, the three countries had announced that they could not agree to a political agreement on the second rail package. Referring to the conclusions of the European Summit of Barcelona in March 2002, calling on the Commission for an assessment report on implementation of the first rail package before pursuing work on the second package, the three delegations felt that it was "unthinkable" that there should be a political agreement on the second rail package when the first has only just taken effect (on 15 March). France and Belgium were also greatly opposed in principle to the Commission's prior authorisation in order to be able to adopt better safety measures than those set out in the proposal. The Netherlands, on the other hand, concerned about possible discrimination, vigorously defended this point, saying that the lack of prior Commission authorisation would be "counter to the internal market". While the text adopted provides for specific procedure in this connection, the Commission's interpretative declaration seems to take more into account the concerns expressed by Belgium and France. Commissioner Loyola de Palacio pointed out that, at any rate, "discrimination is prohibited by the Treaty".