Proposals for revision of first railway package published

Formal proposals for amendment of the earliest European legislation on railway liberalisation were published on September 17, when the European Commission adopted the draft proposal for the recast of the First Railway Package directives.

The aim of the recast is to reflect experience with the introduction and implementation of the directives over the past decade and address a variety of detailed issues that have arisen. The recast focuses on three main problem areas: Competition, Regulation
and Financing.

In terms of competition, the recast is looking to ensure improved, or in some cases guaranteed, access to rail-related services such as maintenance facilities, freight terminals, passenger information and ticketing facilities, which were not fully addressed in the original legislation. Precise rules will be established for addressing conflicts of interest and discriminatory practices.

In order to strengthen regulatory oversight, the recast would extend the jurisdiction of national regulatory bodies to include railrelated services, to ensure that any access issues can be addressed.

The Commission believes that it is essential to strengthen the framework for public and private investment in the rail sector, and the recast makes provision for the establishment of long-term national strategies. It will encourage the drawing-up of multi-year contracts between national governments and their infrastructure providers, linking funding to performance and business plans. The idea is that this will ensure the operators greater certainty about infrastructure development, and provide incentives to improve performance.

Further work is envisaged on undertanding the nature of infrastructure costs and their drivers, in order to improve track access charging regimes, and the Commission believes that in many countries this should result in lower charges for train operators.

Source: Railway Gazette International