Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-10-21-Speech-2-035"
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"en.20031021.2.2-035"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the national States flourished in the nineteenth century, and that was partly thanks to the railways. Well then, in the twenty-first century, Europe must finally be put back on the railways. That is why this package is so important.
In the period between the debate at first reading and this debate, however, the facts have demonstrated that it is still too soon to support Mr Jarzembowski’s high-speed rail system. The Sterckx, Ainardi and Savary reports are more in tune with the needs of today. My fellow MEP Mr Jarzembowski is impatient and is already arguing in favour of the accelerated liberalisation of passenger transport. We are already seeing in a few countries the damage this can do to regional cross-border passenger rail transport. Conventional international trains are being cancelled, for example. Service is declining in those cases, therefore.
Surely it cannot be the case that, in a United Europe, non-TGV cross-border rail traffic, of all things, becomes much more expensive or even disappears. I have already drawn the Commission’s attention to this, in a parliamentary question, and, in its reply, it shares my opinion, calling this ‘an anomaly in the internal market’. Try explaining that to the electorate.
Another pressing concern is the disappearance of, or change in, the range of international trains that is therefore not being identified. I hope that the European Agency carries out a clear evaluation of this, and that we include this aspect in the debate on trans-European networks. We shall vote against premature liberalisation without a framework of accompanying measures. Mr Simpson has pointed out the potential consequences of this.
We propose awaiting the proposals that the Commission is going to make at the end of this year with regard to liberalisation. That is the point at which we should hold this debate, Mr Jarzembowski, and I hope that we are still able to get through the first reading here, so that this work is not wasted. Let us first concentrate on freight transport, however, as that surging flow needs to be put on the railways urgently."@en1
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