Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-09-27-Speech-2-303"
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"en.20050927.22.2-303"2
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"Mr President, the liberalisation plans have far-reaching consequences not only for railway staff, but also greatly affect the quality of service to passengers. The close cooperation of national railway companies with their neighbours is much older than the European Union. That results in fast, cross-border, long-distance trains with matching ticket sales. This European success is now being undermined by increasing competitive rivalry, as a result of which railway companies will seek to reject the least profitable and least subsidised tasks first.
While everyone thinks we are drawing Europe closer together, railway companies are confining themselves to mass transport in the large urban areas and to a few fast mainline connections within Member States. Many cross-border stretches are served only by slow trains; through night trains are being thinned out or disappearing altogether. Only in Germany are European ticket sales and the provision of information top-notch, and only the cross-border high-speed line between Brussels and Paris is busy.
Elsewhere, it is becoming more and more difficult to buy tickets for foreign destinations further afield. Passengers have to change trains en route more often, which also increases waiting times. Passengers on delayed trains from neighbouring countries, which mainly get into difficulty at night, are increasingly given a rough deal, and land up in an exasperating web of confusion. That is what drives those passengers to use aircraft and cars, while the Commission’s White Paper on transport took for granted that there would be more medium-distance transport of passengers by rail by 2010.
Over the past six years, I have demonstrated on many occasions, on the basis of practical experience, how our rail transport is deteriorating. I am therefore delighted with the Commission proposal that at long last offers some counter weight to the adverse effects of liberalisation and commercialisation. It is unfortunate that Mr Sterckx, the rapporteur, has not taken the crisis in international passenger transport by rail as his point of departure, but rather the irritation of railway companies that would prefer self-regulation to a requirement imposed from the European level that they should achieve the German quality standard.
His proposals detract from the improvements for cross-border transport and unnecessarily increase European interference in domestic rail transport. This proposal is a missed opportunity for improving conditions for international passengers and for putting a stop to worsening trends. My group fears that the regulation as set out by Mr Sterckx does not adequately address the problems, the consequence being that it will need to be reviewed within a few years’ time. My group has tabled a number of amendments in order to prevent that from happening, as well as to ensure that European railways show a united front to the public and that shortcomings can be more speedily remedied."@en1
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