Liberalisation plans shunted into sidings

Date: 30/01/1997

THE European Commission has had to get used to the fact that when it comes to railways, reforms travel exceedingly slowly.

Six years after they agreed to a ground-breaking directive on rail liberalisation, only nine member states have fully transposed it into national law - and that includes the three countries which joined the EU only two years ago.

Greece has done nothing, while Belgium, Italy and Luxembourg have yet to implement a far from minor detail of the directive: the section allowing outside companies access to the network.

At last, the Commission has faced reality. In its White Paper on a strategy for revitalising the EU's railways, it called for a halfway house on the way to full open access for freight services.

While Europe waits for governments to act, the Commission is working with the railway companies to identify a network of trans-European rail freeways - a sort of 'free enterprise zone on tracks'.

The national authorities along the designated route would act together to open access to the infrastructure for all freight services, with the intention of giving priority to the transport of goods by rail.

Operators would be favoured in the allocation of train lines, while the high infrastructure charges which have encouraged freight hauliers to get into their trucks would be brought down to attractive levels.

The aim is also to reduce delays at frontiers which can leave trains held up at borders for precious lost minutes or even hours.

The Community of European Railways has established working groups to look into the technical aspects of the project which is due to report back to the Commission in March.

Already, the plan has run into problems. Labour unions have campaigned against the effective suspension of normal rules on a line, as well as the favouritism offered to freight transport.

The French and Belgian governments even threatened to boycott the scheme, objecting to the Commission's suggestion that access to the freeways should be opened to all-comers.

The two authorities claimed that it would be a grossly unfair example of 'cherry-picking' by outside operators. Since the national railway companies would be expected to do all the preparation in the development of the routes, they should also have a say in who should be allowed to come on to their infrastructure, say the two governments.

The new boss of the French railway SNCF, Louis Gallois, has proved to be far from a new broom. He has already condemned Kinnock's plans as “ill-conceived” and liable to undermine his attempts to get his ailing company back on the rails.