Opinion of the Regulatory Scrutiny Board
Date: 2026-01-29
Institutions: European Commission, Regulatory Scrutiny Board
Subjects: access to a profession, carriage of goods, carriage of passengers, carrier, free price, inland waterway transport, market access, market stabilisation, restriction on competition, transport regulations

EUROPEAN COMMISSION

Brussels, 29.01.2026 
SEC(2026) 50 final

REGULATORY SCRUTINY BOARD OPINION

Fitness Check on market access in Inland Waterway Transports

{SWD(2026) 27 final}

{SWD(2026) 28 final}

EUROPEAN COMMISSION 
Regulatory Scrutiny Board 

Brussels, 
RSB 

Opinion 

Title: Fitness Check on market access in Inland Waterway Transport 

Overall opinion: POSITIVE WITH RESERVATIONS 

(A) Policy context

The EU legislation on organising the inland waterway market dates to the 1960s-1990s 
period. For this fitness check the legal framework is grouped around two pillars: pricing 
liberalisation (Regulation 11/1960 concerning the abolition of discrimination in transport 
rates and conditions; Council Directive 96/75/EC on the systems of chartering and pricing 
in  national  and  international  inland  waterway  transport  in  the  Community;  Council 
Regulation 718/1999 on a Community-fleet capacity policy to promote inland waterway 
transport) and access liberalisation (Council Regulation 2919/85 on access to the Rhine 
navigation;  Council  Regulation  3921/91  on  conditions  for  transport  of  goods  or 
passengers  by  inland  waterway;  Council  Regulation  1356/96  on  common  rules  for 
transport of goods or passengers by inland waterway and Council Directive 87/540/EEC 
on the access to the occupation of carrier of goods by waterway).  

Some of the above legislation has not been revised since adoption. The fitness check (FC) 
therefore responds to stakeholder demand for assessing whether the framework is still fit 
for purpose and identifying any shortcomings in pursuit of an internal market in the inland 
waterway sector. 

(B) Key issues

The Board notes the additional information provided in advance of the meeting and 
commitments to make changes to the report. 

However,  the  report  still  contains  significant  shortcomings.  The  Board  gives  a 
positive opinion with reservations because it expects the lead Service to rectify the 
following aspects:  

(1) The  impact  of  the  intervention  on  the  competitiveness  of  the  sector  is  not

analysed.

(2) The report should explain the data needed for conducting the economic analysis,
the robustness of the conclusions and the steps taken towards addressing data
gaps.

  ________________________________   
This opinion concerns a draft fitness check which may differ from the final version. 

Commission européenne, B-1049 Bruxelles - Belgium. Office: BERL 08/010. E-mail: regulatory-scrutiny-board@ec.europa.eu 

(3)  The causal link between the intervention and observed impacts should be better 

substantiated.  

(4)  The  reasons  for  the  predominance  of  Dutch  operators  in  the  sector  are  not 

explained as well as the economic consequences.  

(C) What to improve 

(1)  The  report  should  provide  an  analysis  of  the  impacts  the  intervention  had  on  the 
competitiveness and on the barriers to entry of the inland waterway transport market . This 
analysis  should  be  made  with  reference  to  the  effects  of  pre-existing  distortive  pricing 
practices,  market  access  restrictions  and  the  lessons  learned  from  implementing  the 
regulatory framework.  
(2) The reasons behind the predominance of Dutch operators within the industry should 
be analysed as the report concludes that the market is now harmonised, liberalised and 
thus facilitating the access to new operators. The report should discuss to what extent this 
can be explained by advantages to access the market or the consequence of barriers for 
other  operators.  It  should  assess  whether  this  allows  for  drawing  any  lessons  on  the 
effectiveness of the interventions with regard to ensuring equal access to transport on EU 
waterways.  
(3) Potential risks of negative impacts on competitiveness and consequences on prices or 
quantities resulting from the intervention when addressing overcapacity, should also be 
better analysed in the report. The report needs to better explain why these measures were 
introduced  and  what  are  the  conditions  which  would  justify  their  re-enactment  in  the 
future, including if overcapacity is an issue in a situation with free and fluid market prices. 
Given that the market conditions were not found to justify the re-activation of the market 
disturbances  mechanism  in  the  last  decades,  the  report  should  assess  its  continued 
relevance.   
(4) Data needs for a robust economic analysis should be established. Using the data needs 
as a starting point, the report should provide more information on what data gathering and 
modelling activities were attempted to fill the data gaps. For example, the report should 
explain whether information from the existing market observation mechanisms (such as 
from national  registrations databases)  was used  and if not,  what  were the specific data 
availability or suitability issues encountered. Related lessons should  be included in  the 
lessons learned. 
(5) When analysing the achievement of the specific objectives, the report should establish 
the  specific  role  of  the  interventions  in  explaining  the  resulting  impacts  observed  and 
better explain the causal link between the introduction of the framework and the evolution 
of  the  sector.  It  should  therefore  go  beyond  noting  that  some  market  outcomes  have 
temporally  occurred  after  the  interventions  in  areas  such  as  pricing,  capacity  or 
geographical spread of market participants. For pricing, the drivers behind the observed 
downward trend since the legislative framework was introduced need further analysis to 
demonstrate it is the result of the intervention. 
(6) The conclusions should be better underpinned by evidence based on quantitative data 
analysis. As the analysis suffers from a lack of data as a consequence of the absence of an 
adequate monitoring system the report should highlight this issue in the conclusions and 
make  a  recommendation  to  develop  such  a  system  which  would  include  key  data  and 
methods for its collection without increasing the administrative burden.  

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(7) Stakeholder feedback should be better integrated in the main body of the report. The
analysis should provide more information on the evolution of stakeholder views (where
relevant), in particular given the long period of preparation for the fitness check.

Some more technical comments have been sent directly to the lead DG. 

(D) Conclusion

The  lead  Service  should  revise  the  report  before  launching  the  interservice 
consultation. 

Full title 

Fitness Check on market access in Inland waterway transport 

Reference number 

PLAN/2019/5558 

Submitted to RSB on 

4 June 2025 

Date of RSB meeting 

2 July 2025 

3 

Electronically signed on 04/07/2025 14:17 (UTC+02) in accordance with Article 11 of Commission Decision (EU) 2021/2121