OPINION OF THE COMMISSION pursuant to Article 251(2), third subparagraph, point (c) of the EC Treaty on the European Parliament's amendments to the Council's common position regarding the SECOND RAILWAY PACKAGE with a view to the adoption of a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing a European Railway Agency - Amending the proposal of the Commission pursuant to Article 250 (2) of the EC Treaty

2002/0024 (COD)

OPINION OF THE COMMISSION pursuant to Article 251(2), third subparagraph, point (c) of the EC Treaty on the European Parliament's amendments to the Council's common position regarding the SECOND RAILWAY PACKAGE with a view to the adoption of a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing a European Railway Agency

Article 251(2), third subparagraph, point (c) of the EC Treaty provides that the Commission is to deliver an opinion on the amendments proposed by the European Parliament at second reading.

The Commission sets out its opinion below on the amendments proposed by Parliament.

1. BACKGROUND

Date of transmission of the proposal to Parliament and the Council: [documents COM(2002) 21 final - 2002/0022 (COD) COM(2002) 22 final - 2002/0023 (COD) COM(2002) 23 final - 2002/0024 (COD) COM(2002) 25 final - 2002/0025 COD)] : // 24.1.2002

Date of the opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee: // 19.9.2002

Date of the opinion of the European Parliament at first reading: // 14.1.2003

Date of transmission of the amended proposal: // Not applicable

Date of adoption of the common position: // 26.6.2003

On 23 October 2003, Parliament adopted at second reading a resolution containing the following amendments to the common position for the individual texts:

- 28 amendments to the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on safety on the Community's railways and amending Council Directive 95/18/EC on the licensing of railway undertakings and Directive 2001/14/EC on the allocation of railway infrastructure capacity and the levying of charges for the use of railway infrastructure and safety certification;

- 4 amendments to the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Council Directive 96/48/EC and Directive 2001/16/EC on the interoperability of the trans-European rail system;

- 32 amendments to the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing a European Railway Agency;

- 9 amendments to the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Council Directive 91/440/EEC on the development of the Community's railways.

2. PURPOSE OF THE PROPOSALS

There are four related legislative proposals:

- A proposal for a directive on safety of the railways which defines the basic characteristics of the safety systems for the infrastructure manager and for the railway undertakings. The aim is to develop a common approach to safety and establish a common system for the issue, content and validity of the safety certificates. The proposal also aims to introduce the principle of independent technical inquiries in the event of accidents, in line with the situation in other sectors.

- An amendment to the interoperability Directives 96/48/EC and 2001/16/EC. In addition to the adaptations required by previous proposals concerning the interoperability directives, this primarily concerns ensuring the consistency of the scope as regards the network on which access will be open and the network on which the interoperability rules will have to apply.

- A proposal for a regulation setting up a European Railway Agency to provide technical support for the work on interoperability and safety. The Agency's areas of activity would be, firstly, the development of common safety standards and the development and management of a system to monitor safety performance and, secondly, the long-term management of the system of establishing, registering and monitoring the technical specifications of interoperability.

- A proposal to amend Directive 91/440 to extend infrastructure access rights to rail freight services within a Member State and to speed up market opening.

3. Opinion of the Commission on the amendments by the European Parliament

Proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing a European Railway Agency

Firstly, Parliament wishes to defend the Commission's initial proposal designed to ensure balanced representation of the Council and the Commission as well as of the various interested parties on the Agency's administrative board (amendments 1, 10 and 33).

With a view to improving the transparency and openness of the Agency's activities, Parliament wants representatives of workers' organisations from the industry to participate in the Agency's working parties on subjects directly related to the working conditions, health and safety of staff (amendment 4). It also wants wider consultation of the social partners on the proposals made by the Agency (amendment 5).

Parliament also includes the standard financial and budgetary provisions (amendments 11, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31 and 32) resulting from the entry into force of the new Financial Regulation on 1 January 2003, which it had not been possible to take into account during the work on the common position [1]. It also incorporates the standard provisions on transparency (amendments 13, 14 and 15).

[1] The amendment to the acts setting up the Community agencies was published in Official Journal L245 of 29.09.2003.

Amendment 7 is of a linguistic nature.

The Commission supports all these amendments.

However, the Commission cannot support amendment 3, as it presents legal difficulties in respect of the division of responsibilities between the Agency and the various national authorities. Nor can the Commission accept amendment 6, as it would introduce rigidity and bureaucracy in relations between the Agency, the national safety authorities and the enquiry bodies, while the Regulation already provides that one of the Agency's tasks is to facilitate networking and cooperation between these bodies.

Amendments 8 and 9 concern driver qualifications. It is not possible to incorporate these amendments, as the Commission is preparing a specific proposal on this subject for the end of the year.

Finally, the Commission is unable to include amendment 12 on the Agency's working languages, since it believes that the Agency should simply use the working languages that are already current among professionals in the industry.