Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-01-17-Speech-3-153"
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"en.20070117.9.3-153"2
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".
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, the purport of the reports that are here before us is to make European rail more attractive to its users. One of the things that have for years provided the European Union with an enormous boost in this respect is the opening up of the market, which brings more investments to the railways and improves the quality of the services on offer, and it is to this, in fact, that the work related to the resolution on passenger rights relates.
Since the Commission’s proposal, much has been done at first reading and also with the Council’s common position and the vote in our Committee on Transport and Tourism. I would like to extend warm thanks to the fellow Members who have taken part, more particularly the shadow rapporteurs, for the contribution they have made to this report.
As I see it, we are now drafting a comprehensive and viable set of rights, which provide for liability on the part of railway companies in the case of accidents – I hope that we will never witness one, but if we do, then this should be taken care of in the same way across Europe. These rights also provide for areas including the reception of passengers and compensation in the event of delays or cancellations of train connections; accessibility of trains and stations to people with disabilities; rights and regulations with regard to luggage or larger items such as bicycles or buggies; ticket accessibility, in which connection I should like to urge my fellow MEPs not to get carried away and not to compel railway companies to imperil their viability by adopting heavy and prohibitively expensive ticketing systems that are used by very few people. We should, instead, ensure that tickets are widely accessible and available to people who choose to travel by train. At the same time, information to passengers should be clear and accessible, and a complaints procedure should be in place which everyone is familiar with and which is easily accessible to everyone.
I should like to ask the President of the Council to talk her colleagues into adding one point, namely that the whole system of rights be made very clear to the citizens and train travellers at the stations and on the trains.
I think we have managed to compile a very balanced set of rights. Where we still have differences of opinion with the Council, I hope that we can reach a compromise in conciliation based on sound dialogue.
There is, however, one important difference of opinion between the Council and Parliament: we cannot understand why all these rights will not apply to all railway passengers. If somebody has an accident and sustains an injury, does it matter whether they are on a train that is crossing a national border or not?
Liability must be provided for in a clear and understandable manner to all train passengers within the European Union. Trains or stations should be accessible, whether I wanted to board the train in a wheelchair or whether this train travelled from Hanover to Amsterdam or from Hanover to Berlin.
I should therefore like to ask the Council to abandon its position in this respect and to ensure that all railway passengers have the rights they deserve. After all, every European citizen would then know, wherever they board a train in the European Union, that they would be entitled to a set of basic rights. They would know that, when they board a train, they would be able to enjoy the EU’s diversity with peace of mind.
Since it is this diversity of the European Union, as Mrs Merkel stated this morning, that constitutes the soul of Europe, we would like to encourage everyone to get acquainted with this soul of Europe by train, if possible."@en1
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