Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-06-14-Speech-3-356"
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"en.20060614.21.3-356"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I read Mr Cramer’s report with great attention and interest. I should like to congratulate him on the quality of his report, which is the fruit of cooperation with all stakeholders in the railway sector. You spared no effort, Mr Cramer! Not content to organise a hearing on the European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS), you travelled all over Europe to raise technical and political questions relating to the system. You consulted closely with Mr Karel Vinck, European Coordinator for ERTMS. These are the reasons for the high quality of the report you compiled, which was adopted unanimously by the Parliamentary Committee on Transport and Tourism.
Your report clearly presents the advantages of ERTMS and spells out the three challenges that have to be met if it is to be deployed successfully.
First of all, ERTMS is recognised as the best system in the world today for indicating permissible speeds to drivers and for monitoring those speeds automatically. As Mr Cramer has just emphasised, the success achieved in exporting the system outside Europe to countries such as Taiwan and Korea testifies to the potential of this system as an exportable product.
Secondly, many lines in Europe are equipped with national and even regional systems, most of which are dated and mutually incompatible. Mr Cramer spoke of a ‘patchwork’, which very aptly illustrates the wide disparities between these systems in terms of safety and performance levels. In order to operate on a given line, a locomotive must be equipped with the appropriate system, which is why the Thalys trains need to have seven control systems on board.
Thirdly, as long as ERTMS is not being widely used on the European rail network, railway companies are hesitant to invest in it. Conversely, as long as trains are not equipped for ERTMS, infrastructure providers will also hesitate to invest in it. As a result, it is often in rail companies’ interests to wait for others to take the first step. There is a need to break out of this circle of inertia and convince all players in the field of rail transport that they should adopt what is ultimately a win-win strategy. We can also rely on Mr Vinck, the European Coordinator, to use his powers of persuasion.
The major freight corridors will only be competitive if locomotives are not brought to a halt at national borders by technical barriers, and to that end the Community strategy must be clearly enunciated, as Mr Cramer has shown in his report. It is essential to ensure that ERTMS is put in place wherever it is compulsory, especially on all the new high-speed lines. European funding should be confined to rail projects in which ERTMS is taken into account. Substantial financial incentives must be offered to the first infrastructure operators and the first train operators to equip themselves with ERTMS.
A great deal of work has been done to make ERTMS a success, but we must step up our efforts, and to that end, Mr President, the contribution of Parliament is warmly welcomed.
Thank you, Mr Cramer, for your work on this report. We must move together in the same direction, namely towards a competitive European rail environment that is able to deliver high-quality service. That is how we can shift part of the volume of freight traffic from road to rail in order to save energy and come closer to the Kyoto targets. All of this, Mr Cramer, certainly does require a bold and ambitious strategy for the introduction of ERTMS. In this respect, your report bolsters our case appreciably, and for that I wish to thank both you and the European Parliament."@en1
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