Row over pace of change risks derailing liberalisation package

Date: 19/10/00

By Renée Cordes

ARGUMENTS between EU governments and the European Parliament over the pace of market opening in the rail sector are threatening to unravel a complicated and hard-won liberalisation package.

MEPs are insisting that the process must be accelerated, but this is being fiercely resisted by member states.

The two are at loggerheads over proposals which were agreed by transport ministers nearly a year ago to give rail operators full rights of access to a designated EU-wide freight system to be incorporated into the Trans-European Networks (TENs). The plan was aimed at diverting traffic from over-crowded roads back onto trains by boosting competition in the rail sector.

But MEPs fear that these plans will have little impact if they are not followed up with firm measures for further liberalisation. German Christian Democrat member Georg Jarzembowski, rapporteur on the issue for the Parliament's transport committee, argues that Union states should be required to open up their entire freight networks immediately to complete the single market.

"It must continue to be the EU's goal to complete the internal market in the railway sector at last," states his report. "Only then can the economically and environmentally justified objective of transferring more freight, especially in long-distance transport, from road back to rail and thus of continuously acceptable mobility in the EU be achieved."

MEPs are sticking to their call for a 2010 deadline to be set for complete liberalisation of all freight and passenger networks. They are also refusing to bow to EU governments' demands for some countries, such as Ireland, Greece and the UK, to be given extra time.

Pressure is mounting on the French presidency to broker a compromise between the Parliament and the Council of Ministers, not least because of concern that the rising volume of traffic on the Union's congested roads is damaging the bloc's chances of meeting its climate change commitments.

But diplomats say they have yet to see any new proposals from Paris, which has traditionally opposed rail liberalisation because of fears that it could cause thousands of job losses, and say it is hard to see how the deadlock can be broken.

"The problem is that it was so difficult in the first place for the Council to reach a common position," said one, who nevertheless predicted that an 11th-hour compromise would be reached before the end-of-November deadline. "It is now the presidency's turn to make a move."

As the inter-institutional wrangling continues, the transport sector argues that the pace of market opening is still too slow. "The Parliament has done a good thing by trying to press for faster liberalisation, but they do not go far enough," said Soren Rasmussen, head of the International Road Transport Union's EU delegation in Brussels. "The railway directive came into force nine years ago and the existing state monopolies still cannot deliver the kind of service that customers would like to see."

Arguments between EU governments and the European Parliament over the pace of market opeining in the rail sector are threatening to unravel a complicated and hard-won liberalisation package.