Mr President, first of all I should like to thank all the Members who supported the rapporteur in his work in presenting these two reports which are, I believe, absolutely crucial to the future of the railways. What is the subject matter? The first report analyses the application of the 1996 Directive on the interoperability of the high-speed rail system, drawing the lessons of this for the future. Next, and this is the substance of the second report, we must discuss and vote on a proposed directive on the interoperability of the trans-European conventional rail system. Ladies and gentlemen, we must appreciate the full importance of this subject. There is today an unacceptable contradiction between what is said in speeches and the reality of European transport systems. As might have been expected, the creation of the internal market has, logically, considerably developed the trade in goods and the mobility of persons within the Union, which have shown an increase of 21% and 15% respectively between 1990 and 1997. The bulk of the traffic from this explosive growth in internal mobility, which is expected to be consolidated in the next few decades, has been acquired by road systems and, secondarily, maritime cabotage via the North Sea. At a time when we have right here, in most of the countries of the Union, a rail network and technology unparalleled in the world, with a recent study evaluating the external costs of road transport in terms of public health, infrastructure and pollution at some EUR 480 billion, even though the objective of sustainable mobility and respect for quality of life are now shared by all Europeans, it can be noted that rail has only an 8.6% market share for freight, and 5.8% for passenger transport. There is more than one explanation for this paradox: rail’s reduced level of competitiveness due to a social differential in relation to the road sector, but also the distortions of competition engendered by the considerable external costs of road transport, the priority which most major railway companies in recent years have given exclusively to prestigious high-speed passenger transport, but also excessive national characteristics in terms of railway traditions, techniques and protocols, thereby compromising the flow of continental rail traffic. Today, the situation of the European transport network situation is simple to the point of caricature: there is only one common area in transport and that is the road network. There is no longer any single airspace or European maritime area, nor especially a continuous railway area within the countries of the Union. The issue at stake in railway interoperability is, of course, doing away with the technical frontiers that have been inherited from the national railway structures set in place gradually since the nineteenth century. Today, the Europe of the Fifteen has no less than sixteen electric signalling systems, six electrical voltages, five track gauges and several equipment and therefore infrastructure gauges. Of course, the new high-speed train infrastructures offer a prime area for the introduction of interoperability, since they are new or recent networks devoted to very similar technology. Directive 96/48 was adopted for this purpose. The report on its application, four years on, referred to Parliament to express an opinion, delivers contrasting results, but results that are in the end more positive than they may seem. In the first place, significant delay is observed in the transposition of laws and regulations since, to date, only two countries have transposed it and the first technical specifications for interoperability are on the point of being completed and published. The conclusion is therefore that the time limits for transposition and publication must be more stringent in future. This delay in transposing into law has not, however, hindered the development of interoperable cross-border lines, although Thalys is the only example of true interoperability, more so than even Eurostar, despite its attempts to solve the gauge problem. These two international lines have established a precedent which can serve as a model for future developments. More than that, however, in anticipation of tangible results in future, the directive on the interoperability of high-speed routes has primarily made it possible to define and iron out working methods. For the first time, the railway industry, rail companies and infrastructure managers have started up a joint project to define the technical specifications for interoperability. They have worked on the basis of the most general studies by the International Union of Railways. Within the European Association for Railway Interoperability (EARI) they have set up a working group which now has methods and experience available for transposition to conventional systems. Finally, the Committee established by Article 21, bringing together representatives of the Member States and the Commission, enables political and technical monitoring of interoperability projects and intervention at the discretion of states to direct such projects. In other words, while the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism felt bound to remind the Member States of their obligations in terms of time limits and transposition, it must be admitted that the high-speed systems have provided a first-rate testing ground for the vast worksite of interoperability. In this respect, we have to bear in mind that the network and the conventional stock present problems for harmonisation that are formidable in other ways, due to the national and historical characteristics of networks, the great diversity of the stock, and the considerable extent of the networks. It must be made quite clear at this point that there is no question of insisting that rail companies and infrastructure managers immediately proceed to replace their equipment comprehensively. This is totally out of reach, economically. In the first place, if the goal is to achieve interoperability, this must entail using the fastest and least costly means to achieve decisive progress. In this respect, interoperability may be achieved by methods other than the harmonisation of equipment, since it is possible to adapt equipment to operate in different configurations, following the example of the quadruple-system locomotives. This is a proposal for a pragmatic and realistic approach which would not detract from railways’ competitiveness in relation to other modes of transport by imposing additional costs. The key principles of this proposed directive are as follows: restriction of the geographical area covered by conventional system interoperability to the trans-European network as defined by the 1996 European Parliament and Council Decision; a policy of gradual convergence rather than systematic renewal, taking the form of phasing in priorities and interoperability, establishing a hierarchy for subsystems to enable the fastest and cheapest access, with priority only to new investment for creating, extending, renewing, maintaining and operating systems; establishing a hierarchy of objectives, distinguishing across-the-board objectives to be included in all standards: safety, reliability, health, environmental protection and technical compatibility; the objectives inherent in each technical subsystem: infrastructure, energy, rolling stock, etc.; the separation of the technical task of framing the TSIs assigned to a joint representative body, from the standardisation work entrusted to the European standards institutes, and the inspection and certification entrusted to notified bodies; a policy of user consultation, as suggested by the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism which cannot be envisaged, ladies and gentlemen, without concomitant consultation of staff representatives, the subject of an amendment that we shall be discussing tomorrow; finally, ongoing monitoring of these projects by the Member States and the Commission through the Committee established under Article 21, implemented by the high-speed directive, enabling states to request exemptions, to include special cases in the technical specifications for purely historic or regional networks, as well as certain types of equipment originating from third countries, and also instruments for authorising commissioning operations notified by Member States to the Commission. In other words, there are safety valves for countries with a high level of special characteristics, and, within the institutions stipulated by the directive, they still have the opportunity to argue the case for these special characteristics and to have them included in the studies and in the TSI publications. Finally, during the transition period, it is important to prevent the networks from growing further apart. To this end, new investments, between now and the publication of the TSIs, shall have to comply with authorised technical references. A Union rolling-stock register will be set up, making it possible to identify the rolling stock, its renewal and ageing, in the same way that this is still carried out, albeit imperfectly, for the maritime fleet. Furthermore, we have to look to the future and, therefore, both the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism and the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy have proposed involving candidate country representatives in the projects at this early stage, so that they can anticipate this future acquis communautaire. Similarly, and this is a recommendation that we make, we should already be planning conditions of interoperability between the various modes of transport, in accordance with our general objective of developing intermodal interoperability. It would, of course, be presumptuous to expect everything to be achieved by this directive and the long-term upgrading work it requires from railway operators. Quite clearly Europe is proposing to undertake a long-term and very large-scale project throughout its vast railway network. It cannot single-handedly solve the problem of distortions of competition or of network access or charges which would represent crucial progress towards a new golden age of rail in Europe. All the same, the technical interoperability of our old national networks is indeed an essential condition for the recovery of rail, which this balanced, reasonable and flexible text should make possible to achieve in gradual phases under acceptable economic and social conditions. To the many of you who contributed to this, let me reiterate my gratitude and my appreciation.

Political group: PSE