Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-02-12-Speech-1-087"
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"en.20010212.6.1-087"2
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".
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, at the Brussels part-session two weeks ago we voted on the ‘railways package’ and agreed that this was a great achievement for Parliament and for rail freight in the European Community. Tomorrow we will be voting on the Savary report at second reading on the interoperability of the trans-European conventional rail system. Approximation of technical standards is an essential and important step if we are to facilitate safe cross-border rail freight.
At first reading, all sides put a lot of hard work and effort into this very technical Commission proposal, and I would sincerely like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Savary, today. All that effort has paid off, as, with just a few exceptions, the Council has accepted all Parliament's amendments. The Group of the European People's Party and European Democrats is pleased to see its views largely reflected in the amendments accepted by the Council, which also explains why we are not tabling any further amendments now, at second reading. I did, in fact, table one amendment in committee that was adopted by Parliament at first reading but not subsequently accepted by the Council. It was three votes short of being adopted. This was the stipulation that maintenance and approval of warning systems should be carried out by external and independent certification bodies.
Apart from quite understandable economic interests in many Member States, this amendment has to be seen against the background of the many serious rail incidents which may have been caused by inadequate checks. These approvals and checks were in the past and to some extent continue to be carried out by the rail operators themselves, rather than by independent third parties. When this was discussed in committee all sides, including the Commission, showed great understanding on this point. The wording that has now been adopted for Article 18 and Annex VII to some extent takes account of our concerns, but we are not completely happy with this as things stand.
The Commission's undertaking to include proper independent approval and maintenance of rail systems in the railways package is sufficient for us to speed this otherwise excellent compromise on its way without tabling any further amendments in the plenary session. Nevertheless, when we examine future rail dossiers we will be watching very carefully to see if the Commission has honoured its promises."@en1
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