EU agrees to liberalise rail by 2010[fr] 

Parliament and Council confirmed on 21 June that they had reached a conciliation agreement on the third railway package. 

The main elements of the deal are: 

• International passenger rail services will be opened up to competition as of 1st January 2010. Within two years of that date, the Commission will have to re-assess the situation to see whether liberalisation of domestic services – as had been demanded by MEPs and certain member states, such as the UK, Germany and Italy – should be envisaged. France, Belgium and Luxembourg had led the opposition to allowing other member states to carry out services within their territory. 
• All rail passengers, both on international and domestic journeys, will enjoy a set of basic rights, such as company liability for luggage and the right for people with reduced mobility to be transported, as of 2009, when the Directive enters into force. Extended rights, including compensation for travellers of up to 50% in case of delays, will at first be limited to cross-border services. Member states will be able to exclude other services from these provisions for up to 15 years and urban and regional services may be granted an indefinite exemption. 
• All train drivers will have to hold a certificate recognising that they meet minimum requirements in terms of medical fitness, basic education and general professional skills. The aim is to enhance safety on European railways, while facilitating professional mobility and cross-border services. Other crew members will not be subject to such a licensing system, but MEPs obtained that the Commission must look into this further within one year of the Directive's implementation and, if necessary, present a new proposal to include other train staff performing safety-critical tasks. 

Parliament Rapporteur Dirk Sterckx (ALDE, BE) said: "This agreement is the outcome of extremely arduous negotiations. The fact that it was so difficult to persuade all member states to grant basic rights to rail passengers shows how poorly railway authorities treat their customers nowadays. By reaching this agreement we have done all rail passengers in the Union a service. In its original proposal the European Commission wanted to grant rights only to international passengers. Now all passengers will enjoy a range of basic rights. We had to make concessions, notably on transition periods. That is a pity but we had to get the new member states on board." 

EP Rapporteur Gilles Savary (PES, FR), welcomed the adoption of the directive on driver certification which he says will "strengthen, through the harmonisation of professional standards, the human dimension of railway security". However, he criticised the Council for having reduced the application of passenger rights to only a number of railway operators and for allowing member states to delay the conferral of these rights until as late as 2024. 

Johannes Ludewig, executive director of the Community of European Railway and Infrastructure Companies (CER), said: "The compromise creates legal conditions for further integration of the European railway area, while at the same time taking into account that railways e.g. in Romania or Bulgaria operate under completely different conditions than companies in the UK or in Germany." 

The driver certification scheme "will significantly facilitate cross-border services", stated the CER, adding that the fact that the certification of other staff will be examined separately will ensure that "no superfluous measures are put in place". 

Similarly, it welcomed the separate treatment of national markets as a sign that "the EU institutions have taken into account specific situation of railway companies in Central and Eastern Europe, who are not yet prepared for competition for national services". 

It added: "On passengers' rights, the final compromise manages to reconcile the objective of formalised rights for passengers across the EU and the reality of extremely heterogeneous conditions of railway companies in various member states." 

The European Rail Infrastructure Managers (EIM) said: "The opening of the international freight market from the 1st of January 2007 coupled with the opening of the international passenger market is the key to increasing rail market share, reducing road congestion and hence has a positive impact on climate change." 

It said that the recognition of driving licences for train drivers across Europe "is a very positive step in the direction of allowing for free movement of train drivers and enhancing market opening. This can only assist in furthering market conditions and thereby future growth in international freight services." 

The EIM welcomed the exclusion suburban and regional traffic from the compensation package, saying this would have uselessly duplicated existing legislation already in place in member states. 

EIM Secretary-General Michael Robson said: "Sensible compromises have been reached, allowing the rail sector to continue to focus on gaining market share and benefiting the environment."