Move to boycott rail scheme

Date: 05/12/1996

By Chris Johnstone

FRANCE and Belgium are threatening to boycott a key European Commission scheme to shift more freight from road to rail as EU transport ministers meet next week to take stock of the 'freight freeways' proposal.

The two countries have lined up against Commission plans to encourage freight freeways (fast cross-border cargo routes) because they object to their being open to all-comers.

Belgium and France's stand risks sidelining one of Transport Commissioner Neil Kinnock's most important policy initiatives to boost the railways' haemorrhaging market share of freight and at the same time cut environmental pollution.

National railways and the Commission had been expected to agree last week on the main lines of a charter setting out the operational rules for freight freeways.

But Belgium and France argued that it would be unfair for the national railways to do all the preparatory work on opening up the freight routes, only for latecomers - including private companies - to board at the last moment. They want to have a final say on who has access to the routes, as well as retaining preferential conditions once they have been opened.

The Commission's plans for freight freeways clash head-on with this Franco-Belgian stand. It wants open access on equal terms, and officials have hinted that other railway companies could go ahead and sign up to the freeway charter without their French and Belgian counterparts.

European railways, grouped together in the Brussels-based Community of European Railways (CER), have welcomed the freeway idea, which will be discussed by Union transport ministers when they meet in Brussels next Thursday (12 December).

The freeway concept was outlined last July in Kinnock's White Paper on reviving the railway sector. It aims to end the current situation under which any freight company seeking to move goods by rail must negotiate transit terms for each stretch of railway company track on which it travels.

“The idea of the freeway is to introduce a one-stop shop with one tariff for the whole journey,” said an official.

At the moment, shippers shun railways because they are slow and expensive. Tariffs often bear little relation to real costs and quickly mount as each railway company inputs its expenses. No one is in overall control, and goods are often left waiting in sidings because they have missed their time slots for transiting railway lines.

“The buck never stops at the moment,” said a Commission official. Union railways have lost 20.1&percent; of their freight traffic in the ten years to 1995.

French railway boss Louis Gallois has already attacked the Commission proposal as an “ill-conceived liberalisation”, adding that it would damage SNCF's attempts to recover from years of losses. SNCF is the most important railway freight carrier in the Union, accounting for nearly a quarter of all traffic in 1995.

Belgium's opposition to the Commission's proposals has not come totally out of the blue either. Etienne Schouppe, managing director of Belgium's national railway SNCB-NMBS, had already launched a public attack on the Commission.

Schouppe accused the transport and competition directorates-general of being on different lines over freight policy, claiming Karel van Miert's Directorate-General for competition (DGIV) was interfering with the company's plans to develop fast rail freight links with its Dutch counterpart, Nederlandsche Spoorwegen.

Belgian and Dutch railway companies want to develop rapid services between Rotterdam and Antwerp and Antwerp and Milan. However, Schouppe says DGIV is pushing for the partnership to be dissolved and for each of the rail companies to go it alone to avoid the risk of anti-competitive behaviour. “It is not for the Commission to limit who we cooperate with,” he insisted.

Commission competition officials said the cooperative railway deal had not been officially notified, but added that its chances could be improved if it could prove to be in the general interest.

Dutch railways are also under attack from German ports for offering loss-leader railway tariffs aimed at drawing freight traffic into Rotterdam.

The German ports association has called on the Commission to intervene to put an end to the Dutch scheme, under which cargo traffic is not charged for the use of infrastructure. The Commission says it is still waiting for an official complaint.