In order to ensure the future development and the efficient functioning of the railway system, the distinction must be made between the provision of transport services and the infrastructure operation. The measure is an important part of the provisions included in the text regarding the revision of the First Railway Package and the institution of the Single European Railway Area, adopted at the beginning of July by the European Parliament.
Under the circumstances, it is necessary that the two activities are managed separately and have separate accounts. If the legal conditions for the separation are accomplished, no interest conflicts occur and the confidentiality is guaranteed for the information sensible from the commercial point of view, the infrastructure administrators should have the possibility to externalise specific administrative attributions, such as the tax perception, to entities other than those which are active on the railway transport services markets, as shown in the text adopted by the Parliament at the second reading.
The profit and loss accounts of some infrastructure administrators should be balanced during a reasonable period which, once it has been established, cannot be exceeded under exceptional conditions, such a major and sudden deterioration of the economic situation in a member state, which substantially affects the level of the traffic within its infrastructure or the level of the available public financing. According to the international accounting regulations, the amounts of the loans granted for financing the infrastructure projects will be included in these profit and loss accounts.
“Two years of difficult negotiations have passed (…) to reach a result which could guarantee a better competition and which should establish solid bases for the infrastructure financing”, declared Debora Serracchiani, the initiator of the revision project, on the occasion of the vote.
According to the new text law adopted by the European Parliament, the member states must ensure that they hold separate profit and loss accounts and balance sheets and that the latter are published, on the one side for the activities connected to the provision of transport services by railway companies and, on the other side, for the activities connected to the administration of the railway infrastructure. The separation and transparency of the accounts belonging to railway operators and railway administrators should prevent in the future any illegal transfer of public funds between these entities, even if they belong to the same holding.
The member states can also stipulate that this separation should need the organisation of distinct departments within the same company or that the infrastructure and the transport services should be ma-naged by separate entities.
According to the text on the revision of the First Railway Package, the member states have the obligation to ensure that separate profit and loss accounts and ba-lances are kept and published, on the one side for the activities connected to the provision of railway freight transport services and, on the other side, for the activities connected to the provision of passenger transport services.
It is important to mention that, according to the new measures, the member states must ensure that, under normal conditions of activity and for a reasonable period which must not exceed five years, the profit and loss accounts of an infrastructure administrator present at least a balance between the income resulted from the rate for use of the infrastructure, the surplus resulted from other commercial activities, non-reimbursable income from private sources and financing from the state, on the one side, including advance payments from the state, if the case may be, and, on the other side, the infrastructure expenses.
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