Brussels, 11/01/2007 (Agence Europe) - In a second reading on Wednesday, Parliament will vote on the three reports on the “third railway package”. Although the position of MEPs considerably differs to that of the Commission and Council, it is more than likely that Parliament will adopt the reports in question. Conciliation procedure with the Council therefore appears inevitable, particularly as the railway package is one of the priority points of the German Presidency.
MEPs will be examining proposals contained in the three respective reports:
- that of Georg Jarzembowski (EPP-ED, Germany) on development of the Community railways; - Dirk Sterckx's report (ALDE, Belgium) on rights and responsibilities of passengers; - and that of Gilles Savary (PES, France) on train personnel certification. By adopting the reports approved by the parliamentary transport committee last December, MEPs are now opposed to the Council (and Commission) on three essential points.
The seeds of disagreement on the report on the development of Community railways can be located in the parliamentary committee's proposal on opening up national passenger traffic to competition as from 1 January 2017 (with a 5 year transition period for Member States that joined the EU after 1 May 2004). The Council is hostile to this prospect and does not want to set a deadline. It only agrees to the opening up of international passenger markets (just within the Community) by 1 January 2010. Although the transport committee's proposal did not get a unanimous vote during adoption last December (30 votes in favour, 10 against and 5 abstentions), it is rather unlikely that the report will be thrown out at the plenary, as Socialist MEPs have agreed to give their support to the Christian Democrat rapporteur.
The second bone of contention is over Gilles Savary's report on certification of train drivers. MEPs want to expand the field of application for this directive to other train personnel in charge of security, while the Council and Commission believe that certification of drivers alone will be sufficient. The transport committee is unanimous on this point and considers that drivers and all other train personnel should meet a minimum of conditions on health, education and general vocational skills. The certificates, mutually recognised by Member States, will be awarded by the railway company or infrastructure provider employing the personnel, but definition of train personnel profiles and competencies will be decided by the European Railway Agency (ERA).
There is also disagreement over passenger rights and responsibilities. Parliament has been more generous than the Council and the Commission, and wants to extend passenger rights to compensation in the event of delays or national passenger train cancellations, whereas the common position of the Council and Commission would only give these rights to international passengers - 5% of the total of passengers, according to estimates made by Parliament. In the proposal, adopted in December during the parliamentary committee session by an overwhelming majority of 44 votes in favour, with 1 against, MEPs were particularly thinking of commuters to whom they believe, “the field of application should be extended (Council proposal), in order to protect both international rail passengers and national railway passengers”. Parliament also proposed that if damages suffered in the event of injuries or the death of passengers are above €120,000, the rail company cannot exclude itself from or limit its responsibility. MEPs also propose to expand facilities for persons with reduced mobility, the blind and those with hearing problems, to all international and high speed trains.
The German Presidency is awaiting the vote from Parliament before tackling this subject (considered as one of its priorities) but Mr Jarzembowski called for a decision on the matter before summer 2007.