WRITTEN QUESTION E-0549/02

by Erik Meijer (GUE/NGL) to the Commission

(28 February 2002)

Subject: Restriction of international services by railway companies due to high charges in other countries in a liberalised market

Netherlands Railways (NS) is significantly restricting its international services, arguing that it is incurring serious losses on them. As a result, the Amsterdam-Milan OverNight Expres (combined passenger and goods) service has been axed, the number of places where foreign railway tickets can be bought has been reduced from 61 in 1996 to 27, and is shortly to be further reduced to 10, while in 2002 the holiday trains Alpen Expres and AutoSlaap Expres, which have operated for more than 40 years, will likewise cease to exist. In Netherlands Railways' weekly magazine, De Koppeling, of 8 February 2002, Frits Marckmann, director of NS-Internationaal, attributes the losses to the liberalisation of the railways within the EU: Since then, other countries have been able to charge as much as they like for the use of the infrastructure. And they have been seizing this opportunity with both hands. In no time at all the Italians, for example, were demanding an extra two million guilders [ 900 000] for the use of their track by the OverNight Expres which only had to travel about 50 km within their territory [Chiasso-Milan]. In this way liberalisation is pushing costs up, and moreover making them unpredictable. Switzerland was the only country which did not take advantage: in fact, it was even willing to cut its price because it wanted to take cars off the roads. The problem is that everyone agrees that the use of cars needs to be reduced and that the Alps cannot withstand such a lot of traffic, but no one wants to pay the price.

1. On what international train routes within the EU have costs risen in the past five years because charges for the use of infrastructure outside the Member State where the company providing the service is based have risen so sharply that the train service has been axed, or that there are plans for axing it shortly or increasing fares substantially?

2. Apart from the Netherlands, is it particularly railway companies in Spain, Belgium and Austria that are suffering additional disadvantages because they are at the end of routes or operate relatively large numbers of train services to far-off foreign destinations?

3. Is Italy an exception, or are charges for the use of rail infrastructure also being increased by more than the rate of inflation elsewhere? In which Member States have the biggest rises occurred, and in which have charges risen least?

4. Would it be desirable to rescue long-distance international train services by making it possible for them to survive financially?

5. What will the Commission do to freeze or reduce the cost of using long sections of track in other countries?

Answer given by Mrs de Palacio on behalf of the Commission

(15 April 2002)

1. Currently, the Commission has no regular information or statistics on the level of prices of international railway services in the Community. Therefore, the Commission cannot make any reasonable statement on the possible influence of the level rail infrastructure charges on the level of services prices.

However, in the framework of Directive 2001/12/EC of the Parliament and of the Council of 26 February 2001 amending Council Directive 91/440/EEC on the development of the Community's railways(1), the Commission has set up a Rail Market Monitoring System (RMMS) which will allow it to collect and to publish on a regular basis information on the rail infrastructure charges levied in Member States. Member States will have to transpose this Directive by 15 March 2003. From this moment on information on rail infrastructure charges will have to be made available to the Commission. At a later stage, the RMMS intends if possible also to include information of price levels of railway services in its set of market development indicators.

2. So far, the Commission has no evidence that railway undertakings from Belgium, Spain and Austria suffer any particular disadvantages for international train services through high infrastructure charges.

3. According to the information available to the Commission, there is no specific rail infrastructure charge for border-crossing lines in Italy. As to the relative level of rail infrastructure charges in the Member States the Commission is aware that there are significant variations. For instance, according to a study of the Prognos AG (Basel) for the Deutsche Verkehrsforum from November 2000 (Netzzugang und Trassenpreisbildung im westeuropäischen Schienenverkehr) the average rail infrastructure charges per train km varied in 2000 from ca. 0,40 in the Netherlands over 1,50 in Austria, 2 in France, 2,50 in Italy, 3,25 in Germany, 3,50 in Switzerland to 7,50 in the United Kingdom.

4. The Commission considers that international long distance rail passenger services that reply to the expectations of rail passengers are a desirable feature of the Community passenger transport system. In a recent Communication (Towards an integrated European railway area)(2), the Commission has analysed the situation of this sector and discussed a number of options to develop the regulatory framework in the future to increase its competitiveness. The Commission is of the opinion that under improved regulatory framework conditions, either international rail services are competitive in price and service quality and do not need any public financial support or the competent public authorities consider the service of a public interest and conclude a contract with a railway undertaking which foresees an appropriate public service compensation. Under the Commission's proposal for a draft Regulation on public services in public transport(3), this compensation should normally be awarded following a competitive call for tenders. The available evidence shows that such competitive tendering on passenger rail is associated with cost-efficiency and with increases in numberspassengers.

5. Directive 2001/14/EC of the Parliament and of the Council of 26 February 2001 on the allocation of railway infrastructure capacity and the levying of charges for the use of railway infrastructure and safety certification(4) sets out the structure of rail infrastructure charging systems in the Community. The basic principle that the national charging systems must comply with is marginal cost pricing which provides strong incentives for an efficient use of the infrastructure and enhances the competitiveness of rail services. Member States can if they so wish add supplements (so called mark-ups) to the marginal cost element. Member States will have to transpose the provisions of Directive 2001/14/EC into national law and apply them by March 2003.

(1) OJ L 75, 15.3.2001.

(2) COM(2002) 18 final.

(3) COM(2002) 107 final.

(4) OJ L 75, 15.3.2001.