Rail chief’s plea for legislative restraint

By Karen Carstens

Date: 19/02/04

Johannes Ludewig wants EU officials crafting railway laws to observe the maxim "sometimes, less is more".

This is the message the German-born executive director of the Brussels-based Community of European Railways (CER) has been trying to impress upon the Commission regarding the new set of EU rules it has proposed for the sector. Now in inter-service consultation, they are due to be unveiled on 3 March.

The Third Railway Package is part of Transport Commissioner Loyola de Palacio's aim to fully integrate the European rail area and open it up to competition, making it more attractive and able to compete with its main rivals, road transport and budget airlines.

It focuses on four key elements: the liberalization of international passenger services, a new European locomotive driver's licence, boosting passenger rights and ensuring adequate rail freight quality.

While CER and most of the national railways it represents have no problem with the first two aspects, they do have reservations about the latter two, Ludewig said. "Sometimes, less is more. The state must set the [legal] framework. But one should not be allowed to confuse the rules of the game with intervention."

CER maintains, for example, that "quality in the transport market cannot be defined and achieved by law".

And, according to Ludewig, "there is no need for legislative action - the railways have done this already".

He points to an October 2002 "passenger charter" and a July 2003 "freight quality charter" agreed by CER, UIC (Union Internationale des Chemins de Fer) and CIT (Comité International des Transports Ferroviaires) at the pan-European level, plus several national charters already agreed or in the process of being finalized at member state level.

In addition, CER has compiled a range of facts and figures to highlight quality improvements in the sector reached through voluntary commitments by its members, Ludewig stressed. "The number of contracts with "quality clauses" has been markedly increasing," he said.

But Gilles Gantelet, spokesman for de Palacio, said: "When you make such a law then the passengers have actual legal rights. They cannot go to court if all the railways only have voluntary agreements."

And an EU transport official told this newspaper: "It seems clear that if the sector is to survive it must improve the quality of service. We keep on receiving complaints from MEPs and the wider public about delays."

Ludewig, meanwhile, said: "All we are asking is that the Commission give us another year," adding that several "national passenger charters" will come into force before the end of 2004.

As for the freight market, opened up to competition last March, CER warns that the proposed rail package "will deter potential new railway undertakings from entering the market" and "will foster a shift from road to rail".

Adding a compulsory penalty system, as the new rules suggest, can only serve to "overburden rail against other modes [notably road], which are not subject to compulsory compensation systems", CER claims.

Ludewig adds that introducing new quality regulations could hit national railways in the new member states particularly hard, as infrastructure remains underdeveloped. "You cannot throw eastern Poland into the same pot as northern Italy - that is completely removed from reality," he said.

Johannes Ludewig, Executive Director of the Community of European Railways (CER) is trying to persuade the European Commission to exercise restraint in introducing a new set of rules for the rail sector. The Commission is due to unveil the new rules on 3 March 2004.

http://ec.europa.eu/transport/modes/rail/index_en.htm http://ec.europa.eu/transport/modes/rail/index_en.htm

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