Mr President, I would like to thank all our rapporteurs for their work on a complicated yet important area within the transport brief, namely our railways and the future of our railways. I would like to start with the issue of freight and what has been said about it. In the area of rail freight, the rail industry is presently sitting in the 'last chance saloon'. Unless we all pull together to develop rail freight on a European-wide scale – including opening up national networks, more progress on inter-operability and changes in the way the industry thinks and works – there will be no rail freight to defend or be worth mentioning by the year 2020. It will have disappeared on to the roads mainly, with all the consequences that will entail. So I start this morning with a friendly warning to the railway industry that unless it gets its act together, and unless we all work together in the area of rail freight, it will disappear in 20 years or so. Of course, any action along those lines must be based on cooperation with the trade unions and the social partners. A theme that my group has consistently pushed for, for many years now. In that regard, I welcome some of the agreements recently undertaken between the ETF and the CER, particularly the issue of driving licences, as well as the commitment from the Commission to come forward with a proposal at the end of the year on that subject. With regard to passengers, I would urge caution. I note that my colleague Mr Hatzidakis says 'be bold'. But the problem with that is that one country that decided to be bold with its railways some years back was the United Kingdom. The result of that 'boldness' was a botched privatisation that caused absolute chaos in the railway industry and has caused the present government to spend a lot more money on the railways than was planned. Yet we still do not have a better service. That does not mean that we all retreat into our shells and say that the nationalised railway is the be-all and the end-all. That clearly is not the case. But we need to ensure that nobody makes the same mistakes as the United Kingdom. Liberalisation of the passenger side must proceed step by step. In that regard, our rapporteurs have produced a balanced compromise that everyone can live with. We must all remember that providing a railway is not just about profit – it is also about safety – but it is also about service and service levels to the people that are supposed to be transported from one place to another. In the end, people should come before profit but, sadly, that is not always the case. Let me now focus briefly on Mr Sterckz's report which I shadowed for my group. I would like to thank him for his work and, in particular, for his efforts to get a compromise solution that is acceptable to us all. He should also be congratulated because the battle with the Council – indeed all our rapporteurs' battles with the Council – has made that work especially difficult. I just want to say that everybody supports safety. No politician is going to stand up here and say that he does not think safety is important, that is political suicide. It is a matter of getting the balance right between what is practical and what we can do, as well as making sure that the safety levels we have are as high as possible. Sadly, we have had instances on our railways recently where some standards have not been what they should be. I again thank the rapporteurs and finish by saying to the railway industry that this is a crucial time for all railways in Europe. For freight, this is the last opportunity. I hope we do not throw it away.

Political group: PSE