Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-02-12-Speech-1-092"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20010212.6.1-092"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Mr President, in an ever-widening internal market, differences between systems are becoming more and more of a problem. Within the railway sector, the EU’s 15 Member States have 4 different electrical systems and 15 different signalling systems. Within 10 years, there may be 25 or 27 Member States. The differences between systems will presumably be still greater then.
This is not a problem we shall solve just by finding ourselves new and, to all appearances, modern solutions. Given that, last summer, we inaugurated Europe’s longest combined bridge and tunnel in order to link Sweden and Denmark, it might well be imagined that the problem of non-interoperability had also been solved, but the reverse is true. There is one signalling system in Denmark and a quite different system in Sweden. Just to add to the complications, trains are driven on the left in Sweden but on the right in Denmark. There are various reasons why there are, in actual fact, such major differences between European countries, and these all have to do with history. One reason is that European countries have each electrified their railway systems at different times. Another is quite deliberate – never to make it easy just to go ahead and drive a train straight into another country.
In today’s Europe, in which we now talk about the four freedoms and in which people, goods, capital and services must be able to move with complete freedom across all borders, every obstacle remains a problem. However, we need to remove such obstacles of various kinds. We need to harmonise and to become, as the saying goes, interoperable in different areas. It is therefore an important step for the Commission now to take initiatives whereby, step by step, we obtain the same railway system. The trans-European railway systems, in particular, constitute an obvious first step.
It is important for this work to be characterised by two realisations. Firstly, the work will, in fact, have to take a certain amount of time, for it is going to cost significant sums of money, especially if we, in time, extend the trans-European networks to include other networks. It should also be pointed out that we need to combine with the Central and Eastern European countries to conduct the same operation there in the long term. The other realisation is that, in the short term at least, it is a question of finding solutions without having the same system in every country. The fact that trains can now already be driven across European borders does, in any case, show that this is possible, and it works partly because new technology can be built into locomotives."@en1
|
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples