Existing and proposed European legislation
13. We have already explained that the rail freight industry
is not as successful as many would wish (see paragraphs 7 to 12).
Against this background, the European Community has legislated
and is introducing further legislation. In its 2001 White Paper
it set itself the target of stabilising the rail share of the
freight market, and cited the contribution rail could make to
the relief of road congestion and environmental damage as reasons
for seeking this reversal of trends. One key measure to achieve
this was the introduction of infrastructure charging regimes in
all modes which would fully reflect all costs of use of the infrastructure
by the traffic in question, including congestion, accidents and
environmental costs. Directive 2001/14 provides for such an approach
for rail. However, the only measure proposed regarding road transport
infrastructure charges since this White Paper, the Eurovignette
proposals of 2003, did not permit the level of charges to reflect
all these costs, and in any case agreement on the introduction
of this measure has yet to be achieved.
14. As far as rail is concerned, the European
Commission believes that part of the solution to the declining
market share of rail freight lies in creating a liberalised single
market within the European Union. The three Railway Packages contain
an attempt to deal with the problems that have hindered the rail
freight industry in the recent past so that the industry can improve
its performance and increase its share of the freight market.
15. The key approach of the Commission to achieving
this has been to open the rail freight market to competition.
This process began with Directive 91/440, which created open access
rights for certain international rail freight operators, but has
greatly accelerated with the proposals contained in three Railway
Packages in recent years.
16. The First Railway Package[2],
which Member States were required to implement by the end of 2003,
extended the European Union's policy of open access for international
rail freight services. Due to fears that vertically integrated
operators would use their control of the infrastructure to favour
their own services, it also introduced various measures to try
to ensure transparent and non-discriminatory charges and access
conditions for use of the infrastructure. Specifically it required
that:
- the body responsible for path
allocation and the setting of charges must be independent of any
transport operator;
- where infrastructure, passenger operations and
freight operations are part of the same organisation, they must
be in separate divisions with separate accounts;
- in each Member State there must be a regulator,
to hear appeals and regulate access charges, who is independent
of the infrastructure manager;
- any charges to train operating companies for
access to infrastructure must be based on direct cost although
non-discriminatory mark-ups are allowed in cases where a higher
level of cost recovery is necessary; and
- all authorised international rail freight operators
should have open access to the trans-European rail freight network[3]
and, by 2008, open access to the whole network.
17. The Second Railway Package[4]
has been adopted but does not have to be fully implemented by
Member States until 31 December 2005. It seeks to deal with the
barriers to entry posed by safety regulation and lack of interoperability
of rolling stock and also extends and accelerates the introduction
of open access by requiring that:
- A new European Rail Agency should
be set up to advise the Commission on the implementation of technical
standards for interoperability and common safety requirements;
and
- The date of complete opening of the rail network
for international freight services should be brought forward to
January 2006 and that open access for domestic freight should
be introduced in 2007.
18. The Third Railway Package[5]
which has not yet been adopted has three main objectives:
- to introduce open access for international
rail passenger services;
- to further improve interoperability by introducing
an international rail drivers' licence valid throughout the Union;
and
- to give direct incentives for the improvement
of rail service quality by introducing compulsory provisions in
rail freight contracts for compensation to be paid to customers
when stipulated quality standards are not met.
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