Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-03-09-Speech-2-440"
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"en.20100309.25.2-440"2
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"Mr President, I should like to thank Mr Simpson and the Committee on Transport and Tourism for initiating this discussion and for promoting competitiveness and openness in the railway sector. I have always had strong support in Parliament and I hope this will continue.
The report on rail market monitoring which the Commission published at the end of 2009 shows that the progressive decline of the railways since the 1970s has been stopped in all market segments after the opening of the market and adoption of the first package. So there are some positive notes as well.
However, the economic crisis has had a serious impact on rail, with rail freight operators losing up to 30% of their business; this crisis has highlighted and increased existing structural problems of the railways.
These problems are, on the one hand, linked to the economics of rail and the persisting financial weakness of some actors. A number of Member States still fail to ensure sufficient budget for the infrastructure managers. This not only results in underinvestment which undermines the quality and performance of the rail network; it also builds up indebtedness levels.
On the other hand, there are still economic and technical barriers to market entry. Very often, new entrants find themselves discriminated against, in particular, where incumbent rail operators also have indirect control over the provision and use of rail infrastructure.
The newly established regulatory bodies do not all have the necessary powers and independence to ensure fair and transparent market conditions. The Commission adopted a two-tier approach to tackle these problems: infringement procedures to address incorrect implementation of the rules, and changes to the rules when they were not clear or precise enough.
The first line of approach – infringement procedures – required a detailed analysis of the legal situation in all the 25 Member States that have railway systems and resulted in the reasoned opinions that were sent out in 2009. The main problems are, first, insufficient implementation of the provisions of the directive on track access charging; second, lack of independence of the infrastructure manager in relation to railway operators and the failure to ensure sufficient independence, resources and powers for the regulatory body.
The second line of approach was to take advantage of the announced process of recasting the existing rail packages to propose improvements to the existing rules on rail market access.
In parallel, we will pursue our holistic approach with a view to achieving a genuine internal market for rail. We will continue to promote the technical harmonisation of rail in conjunction with the European Railway Agency."@en1
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