WRITTEN QUESTION E-0518/02 by Erik Meijer (GUE/NGL) to the Commission. Discouragement of the use of international rail transport from the Netherlands due to the limited availability of tickets to foreign destinations.
Date: 2002-02-28
Institutions: European Parliament, Provisional data
Subjects: Netherlands, carriage of passengers, common transport policy, consumer protection, cross-border transport, organisation of transport, rail transport, ticket

C 205 E/158

Official Journal of the European Communities

EN

29.8.2002

(2002/C 205 E/169)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-0518/02

by Erik Meijer (GUE/NGL) to the Commission

(28 February 2002)

Subject: Discouragement of the use of international rail transport from the Netherlands due to the limited

availability of tickets to foreign destinations

Is the Commission aware that, from the computers at railway-station ticket offices in some Member
1.
States, it is possible to obtain immediately tickets for a wide range of places of departure and destinations
abroad, whereas in other Member States they can only be obtained by ordering them in advance and
having them sent by post, or bought at special international counters at a few large stations which are
open for only a limited number of hours per day (for example from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays)?

2.
Is the Commission aware that Netherlands Railways, which has already previously stopped selling
tickets to relatively distant major cities and restricted the availability of tickets and reservations for all
overland journeys exceeding 200 km to the largest cities, border stations and the airport (27 stations out
of a total of 410), is now considering restricting such sales still further by cutting the number of stations to
a mere 10?

Does the Commission welcome the fact that, because of the limits on availability and opening times,
3.
train passengers who start their journeys in the Netherlands are now in many cases compelled to buy their
tickets to more remote foreign destinations 1 including Berlin, Paris and Strasbourg 1 during a break in
their journey in Hamburg, Hanover, Cologne or Brussels?

Does the Commission know of any other EU Member States which have rail

links with other
4.
Member States and where the availability of train tickets to foreign destinations is as limited as it is in the
Netherlands?

5. Will the Commission inform the Netherlands Government 1 which wholly owns Netherlands
Railways 1 of its adverse findings?

Source: ‘De Volkskrant’ newspaper, 2 February 2002

(2002/C 205 E/170)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-0520/02

by Erik Meijer (GUE/NGL) to the Commission

(28 February 2002)

Subject: Promoting international rail transport by facilitating the purchase of tickets to foreign destinations

1. Why it is not possible throughout the opening hours of station ticket offices to purchase directly
train tickets from and to destinations in foreign countries, and even from foreign localities via one’s own
country to another country, as one already can from Deutsche Bahn, for example for travel between
Sweden and France or between the Netherlands and Eastern Europe?

2.
Is it acceptable that railway companies providing passenger services should regress to a position of
providing purely national services, thus increasingly surrendering the field of international transport to bus
companies and airlines, or is the Commission 1 inter alia in connection with the white paper 1 pursuing
measures to combat such a development?

3. Will the Commission seek to ensure that railway tickets, at least to all popular destinations up to 200
km beyond the national border, major foreign interchange stations and cities within Europe, are widely
available in all Member States, with the possible exception of Ireland, Finland and Greece, which do not
have any international rail links with other EU Member States?