The most important event of January for the European railway market was the adoption by the European Commission of the law proposals which form the fourth railway package. Interest on these law proposals goes beyond the borders of the European Union. Candidate countries or potential candidate countries in the Western Balkans, as well as the eastern neighbours of the Union, that have to struggle to meet European standards on market liberalization in order to benefit from privileged relationships or financial aid, are equally interested in the evolution of the railway system reform.
Even more as this reform process proves to be rather troublesome. Four railway packages in 12 years plus a recast for the first legislative package are hints of a difficult and hard to control process. Results don’t reflect yet the objectives that this reform aimed at. The scene presented by Siim Kallas in his speech held during the presentation of this fourth railway package was quite bleak. “The trends in rail are already very worrying”, he said.
But the core message of his speech was the fact that the approval of this package is a key moment when we can abandon railways or we can give this transport mode a new push aimed to create a European network that actually works.
Therefore, a new law package which doesn’t come to complete or to polish the previous packages, but which is itself an absolutely necessary phase. But no one says it will be the last.
The future member states will skip these trying phases to their own benefit and will learn from the experience of the European Union member states. But domestic companies will have to face, with the EU accession, a much more consolidated market and will have to cope with a difficult to compete competition; nothing that could not be overcome by a proper reform which should form a business-oriented sector that would depend every day less on state-budget subsidies.
The law proposals included in this package put special focus on the importance of transforming infrastructure managers, which have been said not to have managed to meet market demands thus leading to a non-effective use of public funds throughout the whole sector. One of the objectives is the consolidation of the infrastructure managers’ position, so that they could have control over the entire central functions of the railway network, including on planning infrastructure investments, current operations and maintenance, as well as on establishing schedules. The proposals guarantee that the infrastructure managers will deal with all the responsibilities related to development and exploitation, including traffic management and infrastructure maintenance.
Moreover, in order to strengthen the market orientation of these managers, the European Commission proposes the establishment of new structures. Member states will have to ensure the set up of new Coordination Committees including representatives of the infrastructure managers and users, but also public authorities, thus permitting all infrastructure users to make their requirements known and which would make sure that the problems they face are properly dealt with.
by Florentina Ghemuţ
Consultant
Club Feroviar
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