In response to the need of an international platform to discuss the effectiveness and progress of European railway policy, the University of Leeds – Institute for Transport Studies -and Europoint – professional conferences & exhibition organiser, considered it most useful to hear the viewpoints of public and private operators, policy makers, regulators and researchers on regulation and fair competition in passenger and freight operations as well as future plans, needs and wishes for additions and revisions to EU rail policy. It happened in Brussels on June 22nd 2010.
“Effectiveness of EU Rail Policy” conference attracted 81 participants from 59 companies and from 19 different countries. It was structured on four panels – European railway policy, Regulation, Competition in the passenger market and Competition in the freight market – , each of them being completed by a forum of discussions.
The main topics under discussion were the rail policy making process, its current status and the future of EU rail policy. High quality speakers have shared their experience and viewpoints with the audience. According to ITS researcher, Professor Ch. Nash, EU rail transport policy has some key implementation issues such as separation of infrastructure operators, the degree of competition and the independence of regulation. Discussing three different models (Swedish, French and German) of the principle of separation of infrastructure from operators, it was concluded that none is the best and solutions still have to be found. M. Castelletti, head of unit E2 rail transport & interoperability, DG TREN, highlighted the successes and the failures of EU rail policy and insisted on the revision of the First Railway Package. The biggest concern is represented by the large degree of variation of infrastructure charges, which is a shortcoming of the policy. Also, although there is legislation, it is not fully implemented and applied. Altogether with financial transparency, this is a key to further progress. J. Ludewig, Executive Director of the Community of European Railway and Infrastructure Companies (CER), argued that EU policy is more than legislation and reminded that it was not EU to be the leader of reform initiatives, but Sweden, UK and Germany, which had a previous interest in an open market. However market opening alone does not solve the problem of railway system development. One important conclusion is that liberalisation and financing are complementary.
The Romanian case is the most extreme if the Government does nothing
The Romanian case was of the most discussed and attracted the majority of the critics. For M. Castelletti, Romania is a “country with high competition level and bad performance”, the negative trend being explained by underinvestment and high infrastructure charges. J. Ludewig argued that the gap between Western and Eastern Europe is broadening and all perspectives show it would further increase. In CEE there is a huge gap between railway transport revenues and costs mainly because of underinvestment. “The Romanian case is the most extreme if the Government does nothing”, he declared. Figures show that between 1995 and 2008 rail freight transport registered dramatic decline that has not been stopped yet. For Joachim Fried, senior executive vice president economic, political affairs and regulation Deutsche Bahn, EU rail policy is “certainly in a state of learning process” and has to cope with an execution deficit. “We have a separated world in Europe, we have to care for the East, to improve political and economic conditions there”, he declared.
M. Verslype, Executive Director of European Railway Agency (ERA), put emphasis on the concept of interoperability, while A. Mazzola, the director for European affairs and international associations, Ferrovie dello Stato, Italy, made an analysis on productivity. According to the later, EU policy is good, progress has been registered; however we are still far away from the American and Japanese rail systems. Referring to passenger market competition, J-M Dancoisne from the Permanent Representation to SNCF-Brussels highlighted the necessity to be “European minded to address this sector” and consider infrastructure from a “google map point of view”. Therefore HSL has to be extended eastwards and fully interconnected. Other speakers included K. Otte working for the German Bundesnetzagentur and E. Quinet of the French Institute PSE-ENPC. They shared with the listeners their expertise in the regulation domain. Furthermore M. Quidort, president of the association of the European Passenger Transport Operators (EPTO) and J-E Nilsson, of the Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute (VTI) covered the theme of competition in the passenger market. Speakers, forum participants, industry stakeholders and other delegates shared best practices and stimulated cross-border cooperation and effective progress. MEP missing from the discussions did not pass unnoticed.
by Delia Lazăr
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