The European Parliament urges the Commission to ensure proper implementation of the First Railway Package

Members of the European Parliament adopted today a report that urges the European Commission to ensure proper implementation of the First Railway Package.

European Rail Infrastructure Managers (EIM) see this as a wake-up call for the Commission to act. EIM hopes this will lead to a long awaited recast of the initial EU rail regulation, which has not been correctly implemented in most of the European Union member states.

“EIM has pushed for the last three years the European institutions to clarify, streamline and simplify current EU law and avoid scope for misinterpretation and discrimination. The fact that the European Parliament has given its explicit support is a great success of our efforts,” said EIM Head of Policy Dan Wolff.

MEPs highlighted in their report the main measures to ensure correct implementation of the package, which are strongly supported by EIM:

• The enhancing of independence of infrastructure managers to ensure the implementation of the package
• Strengthening of independence, powers and resources of Regulatory Bodies
• Adequate funding of infrastructure by the member states to enable infrastructure managers to offer safe, reliable, high quality services at a reasonable price
• Non discrimination in essential facilities (rail related services) provision to ensure fair competition.

The First Railway Package agreed in 2001 was designed to liberalize international rail freight, to establish a transparent regulatory regime for the allocation of capacity and charging for the access to rail infrastructure across the EU. This should lead to a better and greener rail transport with long-term benefits for passengers, environment and the market.

The majority of EU member states, however, failed to comply with the EU law. This lack of implementation shows that the EU has not achieved its goal to have a functioning internal market in railway traffic crucial for the further development of transport in Europe.

“The adoption of the regulation on rail freight corridors earlier this week shows that the European institutions are willing to get to a comprehensive legal framework for railways. The actual recast of the First Railway Package will be a major milestone towards the success of the internal market for transport. EIM can only welcome this perspective” concluded Dan Wolff.