Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-01-17-Speech-3-151"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20070117.9.3-151"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
".
Mr President, Mr Vice-President of the Commission, Madam Secretary of State, speaking as rapporteur for this House, I recommend to it that, tomorrow, the national railway networks should be not only opened up to cross-border passenger trains run by all railway companies, irrespective of their country of origin or of whether they are state-owned or private – which is what the Council envisages – but also that they should be opened up for the purposes of passenger traffic within the country at a later date.
Through you, Commissioner and Vice-President Barrot, I appeal to the Commission to endorse the substance of this House’s proposals, since I see the statements made to the committee by your staff, to the effect that they could see no reason for the networks to be opened up to domestic traffic as well, as going against convictions that the Commission has held for many years.
I would remind you of the celebrated White Paper on the European single market that the Commission published in 1985. It will be evident to anyone who remembers what is in it that the principle has applied ever since that it is not the completion of the internal market, but resistance to it, that needs to be justified, and no such justification has been forthcoming from you.
Finally, let me say that I do not believe that the Presidency of the Council will accept Parliament’s proposals
and so I appeal to it to set the conciliation procedure in motion without delay, if at all possible, as soon as February, so that we can get this wrapped up before the German presidency ends in the summer. I believe that this third railway package is what the public and European businesses need, let us work together to get it adopted by the summer.
This is the line that this House has been taking ever since 2003. We have always taken the view that the European internal market must be made, once and for all, in the railway sector as well, thus making possible, by way of fair competition among railway companies, more and better-value service for railway travellers.
By way of a concession, Madam Secretary of State, to the Council – which still has its own misgivings about opening up the networks to private passenger traffic at too early a juncture – the committee is now proposing 2017 as the date for networks to be opened up to domestic traffic. It is also the intention that those states that acceded as recently as 1 May 2004 or later should be able to extend this deadline by another five years in order to give their railway companies more time to prepare themselves for the internal market and for the competition that it brings.
We ought really to agree that, for the Member States, ten or fifteen years really ought to be enough to reorganise their railway companies in such a way as to meet demand and the needs of their customers, for the public are entitled to efficient and good-value passenger transport within their own countries as much as anywhere else; after all, without that, the railway sector will be unable to compete against cars and aircraft and thereby have a future.
Apart from a few minor amendments, the Committee on Transport and Tourism agrees with the Council and the Commission that the Member States must be allowed not to open up – or to open up only partially – their networks if their being opened up would endanger regional and local passenger traffic; that is where we agree, for regional and local transport are of vital importance to the public, not least for environmental reasons.
We do not agree, however, Madam President-in-Office, when it comes to the great big package that the Council has come up with in order to further limit the opening up of networks. The committee proposes that the introduction of the ‘principal purpose’ criterion and the giving of pre-eminence to long-term concessions be rejected. I am very pleased to note from Annex II to the Common Position, that the Portuguese presidency took exactly the same view as Parliament on this, for, if one weighs up the demands of the internal market – which should have become a reality a long time ago – against the special interests of public passenger and regional transport, it becomes apparent that the special rules imposed to secure the latter’s position already do enough to restrict the opening up of networks.
The committee did not do as I recommended and do away outright with the mandatory levy on all types of passenger transport to the benefit of public local service providers – which the Council surprised us by inserting – and instead recommended amendments to it.
In the conciliation procedure, Parliament and the Council need, together, to consider to what extent such a mandatory levy is actually justified by the facts of the situation and the system’s requirements, or whether, on the other hand, it risks being no more than a pretext for deliberate restrictions on the deregulation of the networks.
The committee also recommends the incorporation of the new rules on transit, the acceptance of the derogations for Malta and Cyprus, and the amended wordings for amending Directive 2001/14/EC in the interests of the more effective planning of high-speed routes."@en1
|
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples