WRITTEN QUESTION E-0580/03

by Erik Meijer (GUE/NGL) to the Commission

(28 February 2003)

Subject: Fire danger and technical vulnerability of high-speed trains and assessment of technical justification for monopolies

1. Does the Commission reject the requirement laid down in the Netherlands by the fire service, the Ministry of Transport and Public Works, the Ministry of the Interior and the Project Organisation High-speed Line South (Hogesnelheidslijn Zuid) that all trains on the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Breda-Antwerp high-speed rail link must be capable of resisting smoke and fire for 15 minutes?

2. Does the Commission fear that the Dutch safety requirements will create a monopoly for the sixteen double-decker trains for frequent service between Amsterdam-Breda and Amsterdam-Brussels soon to be ordered by High Speed Alliance (consortium of Netherlands Railways (Nederlandse Spoorwegen) and the airline KLM), because currently the requirements are still not being met by the Amsterdam-Paris Thalys trains (owned jointly by the Dutch, Belgian, French and German railways), which have been in service since 1997, and which will be using the same tracks?

3. Has the Commission noted that a de facto monopoly exists elsewhere in the EU, namely on the new high-speed line with steep inclines between Cologne and Frankfurt Airport, on which the only trains meeting the technical requirements, the ICE-3s, run partly on international routes to Amsterdam, Brussels and Basle, and that this situation is problematic because the head of DB-Systemtechnik sometimes records 700 breakdowns per day on the fifty ICE-3 trains, because the advanced, but insufficiently tested, electronic system does not appear to be mastered even by the supplier Siemens, and each solution tried causes a new problem?

4. Does the Commission agree with the author that it is more important to break the monopoly of the trains on the Cologne-Frankfurt line, which are constantly breaking down, than to cut back the fire safety requirements in the Netherlands for fear they will bring about a monopoly?

5. What measures does the Commission intend to take to ensure that fire safety is placed ahead of combating monopolies, and that for all international high-speed trains, therefore, the risk in the event of fire is reduced to a level corresponding to that prescribed by the strictest measures applied by a Member State to its own internal traffic?

Sources: De Stem of 9 February 2003 and Handelsblatt News am Abend of 13 February 2003

Answer given by Mrs de Palacio on behalf of the Commission

(25 April 2003)

As already indicated in the Commission's answer to Written Question E-0473/03(1) by the Honourable Member, the first set of technical specifications for interoperability (TSIs) for high-speed train services was adopted by the Commission on 30 May 2002. The technical specification for rolling stock contains several fire safety provisions, including the one mentioned by the Honourable Member concerning fire resistance. These TSIs apply to all new rolling stock and, under certain conditions, upgrading/renewal projects. They will, in future, ensure not only greater standardisation of rolling stock and better movement across frontiers, but also genuine competition on markets which traditionally used to be de facto monopolies. However, change will take place gradually over several years, and it is quite normal that there are anomalies such as those mentioned by the Honourable Member.

With regard to the adoption by a Member State of safety rules stricter than the Community rules and the possible resulting distortion of competition, this problem is being discussed in the context of the second railway package(2) presented by the Commission on 23 January 2002 on which the Transport Council reached political agreement on 28 March 2003.

(1) See page 134.

(2) OJ C 126, 28.5.2002.