Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-11-28-Speech-3-155"
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"en.20071128.18.3-155"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner Barrot, ladies and gentlemen, I firstly want to congratulate the rapporteurs on their work on the various reports which represent another step towards the integration of the European railways.
We are faced with the challenge of developing a competitive, profitable, sustainable and safe European railway system, in other words a true alternative to other modes of transport, thus enabling a modal shift.
However, the European railway system currently still suffers from many problems which have not yet been solved. We can travel by train from Madrid to Berlin but, unfortunately, this journey, in a Europe in which we do have a single currency and an internal market, would be a real epic as we lack an integrated rail system.
The differences in track width between certain countries, the lack of standardisation and technological harmonisation of rolling stock and signalling systems, the disparities in training and certification of locomotive drivers and the insuperable difference in voltages supplying the tracks all make rail transport less competitive and work against the very reason why trans-European transport networks were planned, in other words to achieve a truly internal market in transport thus enabling more European construction.
Please allow me, ladies and gentlemen, to raise with you and the Commissioner, albeit briefly, the well-known and serious problem that is threatening the connection between the Iberian Peninsula and the European rail network, particularly in the Mediterranean area. This is not just a Spanish or French issue, it is a European issue. Commissioner, if the work on this line is not speeded up, we will not, in the medium term, be able to overcome the almost insuperable orographical obstacle of the Pyrenees.
In this respect, I want to call on the European Commission and the Commissioner to urge the Spanish and French Governments to solve this problem with a view to achieving a truly European rail system. I know that things are difficult at the moment in Spain because a minister is being questioned and the government is a lame duck, but there will soon be another government and, with this, a new hope. I truly hope that this problem, which is neither Spanish nor French but European, can be successfully overcome."@en1
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