Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-09-27-Speech-2-306"
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"en.20050927.22.2-306"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, in my speech, I will confine myself to two sections of the package and will obviously start with Mr Sterckx’s report. I should like to thank him for the excellent cooperation, which, I think, enabled us to thrash out sound compromise proposals in the key areas. The practice run we had for airline passengers turned out useful for train passengers too, all train passengers in fact, so also including those using national rail transport. Our group considers it important that we did not only work out a general compensation scheme for delays exceeding one hour, but also for repeated short delays, so that undertakings are encouraged to work more efficiently and be more punctual, and can in that way also attract new customers, which is, after all, what we set out to do.
I would like to say a few words about assistance for people with reduced mobility, on which we have tabled two additional amendments. First of all, notification of such assistance should not be made 48 hours, but 24 hours, in advance. I think that that is very reasonable, and would ask you to endorse it. Secondly, the training of rail staff should also give attention to that aspect of the job.
It remains important to us that rail passengers can readily purchase their train tickets at all times, whether from ticket offices at train stations, from ticket machines, or, in the absence of ticket machines, on the trains themselves. The rapporteur would now like to make exceptions for cases where seat reservations are compulsory, which I can understand, but also for the purpose of combating fraud. I too am against fraud, but I fear that if we follow your line, then we will end up with an empty box, and that is something we cannot endorse.
I would now like to turn to Mr Jarzembowski’s report. I am a little surprised at the ease with which a majority of my fellow Members in the Committee on Transport and Tourism want to rush the Commission and intend to liberalise the whole railway system by 2012, without too much research, or without carrying out a thorough analysis of the impact this would have on national rail networks, which, as you know, differ greatly from each other, not least in terms of structure, or without asking whether that is the universal remedy that will enable us to attract more rail passengers.
I think we should acknowledge that liberalising the market was undoubtedly a good thing in certain sectors. In the public transport sector, however, this is not, in my view, the case, as it is not a commercial sector and we also want to achieve objectives other than cost-effectiveness or profit, such as environmental objectives or people’s mobility. Measures other than liberalising the market have a far greater impact on the number of rail passengers than is often appreciated. I would give you the example of Belgium, where the number of passengers in 2003 rose by 7% and in 2004 by 6%, and the latest figures are also promising. This was not achieved by liberalising, but by modernising, by offering a better service, better facilities and by adopting an innovative price policy.
For the record, I have no problems with liberalising international passenger transport as such. In the case of the Thalys, I would not object to competition hotting up, as long as there were sound guarantees in place that all Member States, both now and in future, would be able to develop good public services. Therefore, it would have been preferable had we had a package on liberalisation on the one hand and the provision of public services on the other, rather than the package that is before us now."@en1
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