26/01/2011 (Agence Europe) - Battle with OTIF continues. Accusing the European Union of making conditions unacceptable, the intergovernmental international rail transport organisation, OTIF, announced on Wednesday 26 January the convening of the first special AGM in the organisation's history. OTIF said the meeting, to be held in Bern, Switzerland, on 15 and 16 June, had been forced by the EU because of the dispute about the EU's joining of the OTIF Convention to standardise rail passenger, baggage and freight handling rules for international transport. Some EU member states have already joined the Convention but the dispute is about negotiating the membership of the EU as a whole. OTIF says the AGM has been called because of the EU's refusal to approve the outcome of the negotiations carried out on behalf of the EU by the European Commission and the EU's refusal to renegotiate certain issues. OTIF is particularly unhappy about the EU's stipulation that the Convention would only apply “where there is no new EU legislation”. (A.By./transl.fl)