The European Commission decided to pursue infringement proceedings against ten Member States that have not yet communicated their national implementing measures to transpose two key directives of the…
The European Commission decided to pursue infringement proceedings against ten Member States that have not yet communicated their national implementing measures to transpose two key directives of the so-called second railway package. These directives aim to ensure high levels of safety and interoperability for rail business across Europe.
Jacques Barrot, Vice-President of the Commission, incharge of transport, said: A certain level of harmonisation in technical and safety requirements is essential to ensure the level playing field necessary for the good and fair functioning of the rail internal market. It is now essential that all the conditions are put in place by the Member States to allow a fair, open and safe market for rail transport to emerge.
The second railway package[1] had to be transposed into national legislation before 30 April 2006. The 10 countries[2] failing to notify the Commission of their transposition of the two directives (2004/49 and 2004/50) are Germany, Greece, Spain, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, Slovenia and the Slovak Republic. These Member States failed to respond to the Commission`s reasoned opinion sent in October 2006, therefore the Commission has decided to take the case before the European Court of Justice.
Directive 2004/49/EC on railway safety aims at strengthening rail safety by ensuring full transparency in relation to safety procedures in force. It lays down a procedure for granting the safety certificates, which every railway company must obtain before it can run trains on the European network. The objective is to gradually bring the national safety systems to the highest common European standards, which would be set by the Commission after preparatory work carried out by the European Railway Agency at the technical level. It also requires Member States to set up an independent safety authority and an accident investigation body for rail transport.
Directive 2004/50/EC updates legislation already in force on the technical interoperability, which is needed in order to operate cross-border services and cut rolling stock costs on the high-speed network. The Directives allows for a change in working methods so that faster progress can be made on interoperability also on the conventional network. Geographically, interoperability will be extended to the entire open rail network of the European Union.
National legislation implementing the second railway package will separately be subject to further examination as to whether it conforms to European rules and fully transposes them.
[1] The second railway package consists of Directive 2004/49/EC (Railway Safety), Directive 2004/50/EC (Interoperability), Directive 2004/51/EC (Market Opening) and Regulation (EC) 881/2004 establishing a European Railway Agency. Directive 2004/51/EC foresees full market opening for international rail transport as of 1 January 2006 and had to be implemented by 31 December 2005. A comprehensive view of the notifications by the Member States can be found under: http://ec.europa.eu/transport/rail/legislation/mne_table_en.htm.
[2] Estonia and Spain only failed to notify 2004/49/EC, whereas France failed to notify 2004/50/EC.
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