Brussels, 19/09/2005 (Agence Europe) - The presentation of the report by Corien Wortmann-Kool on the Eurovignette, before the Parliamentary committee on transport last Tuesday (EUROPE 9028), has given rise to many reactions from organisations and rail transport sector. The CCFE (Community of European Railways) and the EIM (European Rail Infrastructures Managers) are in favour of applying the polluter-pays/user-pays principle including both internal and external costs, so that tariffs applied to the road sector will reflect the genuine costs to society (congestion, accidents, emissions, noise, etc). However, contrary to the line taken by the rapporteur, who wanted to wait for the Commission to present a new methodology to calculate external costs before planning ways of internalising them, the CCFE would like the Member States to be able to start applying a tariff system which takes external costs on board immediately, without waiting for the vote on the Parliamentary committee in November. In order to transfer a proportion of freight from road to rail, a fair system of tariffs must be set up between the various modes of transport; however, this is far from being the case today, said the Director of the CCFE, Johannes Ludewig, who points out that the only access to the rail network between Warsaw and the German border costs 4800 EUR, whereas the motorway is almost free for the same journey. The EIM defends an intermediate and more pragmatic position between the two extremes, which consists of "leaving the door open to external costs", in the words of its Secretary General, Marc Falchi. Until alternative methodology has been approved, the Member States should be allowed to increase infrastructure costs in order to reflect a minimum level of external costs, but this increase would not be able to exceed 60% of the infrastructure costs (minimum level estimated by UNITE - UNIfication of accounts and marginal costs for Transport Efficiency). Alongside this minimum requirement, the EIM states that it is prepared to make data available to the Commission on the infrastructure costs and external costs in the railway sector, so that the new method of calculation can lead to fairer pricing levels between the two modes of transport.