Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-07-10-Speech-2-407"
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"en.20070710.57.2-407"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to start by expressing my deep gratitude to the shadow rapporteurs for their cooperation on the first railway package.
Generally speaking, the first railway package can be described as a complete success. The opening of the networks in Europe to rail freight traffic has proved its worth. The countries who have done particularly well are those who prepared themselves for this early on rather than waiting until the networks were opened. For example, Germany has been able to increase rail freight traffic by 25% and the Netherlands by 42.5% since the opening of the networks, and the United Kingdom and Poland have managed to increase the proportion of freight transported by rail by 60% – albeit at a low level in the case of the United Kingdom. This benefits the environment, and it benefits transport in Europe.
The countries who did not prepare for this, and waited until the last moment, are not doing so well. For example, France, which did not open up its freight networks until the beginning of this year, saw a 28% decrease in rail freight traffic for the same period. Its volume of road freight traffic has increased – which hardly fits in with prevailing climate policy.
In my report, I also discuss the fact that the overall modal split has not changed – the reason for which being, of course, the absence of fair framework conditions between the different modes of transport. Our framework conditions are spectacularly unfair! Transport in Europe could also be described as too cheap, with only rail transport – which is environmentally friendly – being too expensive.
We also have unfair subsidy practice: approximately 95% of total EU cofinancing for transport is spent on road transport – not on rail transport, as is always called for and claimed in soapbox speeches. For this reason, I am delighted that the committee was able to agree that, in future, 40% of spending on transport should be channelled to the railways. It is unacceptable that our efforts should be counteracted by poor financing practice.
The unfair framework conditions also take the form of
the imposition by the EU of mandatory rail tolls applying to all trains on all routes and having no upper limit, whilst road tolls do have an upper limit, are voluntary – the Member States can decide whether to levy them or not – and apply only on motorways and only to lorries above 12 tonnes. This is unfair competition, and must change if the railways are to have a chance.
For example, some of the new Member States are levying very high tolls on rail freight services. The eight highest track charges are levied in the new Member States. At the same time, these high tolls are used to subsidise passenger transport, which receives hardly any State subsidies or none at all, whilst road freight transport escapes with no charges. This is a model of how to move transport from the railways to the roads – exactly the opposite of what the competent Commissioner and the EU always claim to be aiming for.
We want fair competition; but this fair competition is not yet complete, as particularly those railway undertakings that do not have a long State tradition are frustrated time and again in Europe. They have complained, for example, that access to the network or to a favourable route cannot be granted because this route has already been allocated to the rail undertaking belonging to the dominant group, that their wishes cannot be met since points have previously been extended or passing loops dismantled by the State undertaking, that low-speed stretches of route (speed limits) have been ordered – for no good reason – in order to frustrate the wishes of the new rail freight operators, that route prices have been drastically increased when State railway undertakings have been sold to another undertaking, that cross-subsidisation is not being prevented, and that non-State undertakings often pay higher energy prices than group subsidiaries.
This shows that much remains to be done in spite of our success. After all, the overall modal split between road and rail in Europe has not improved, but actually worsened. One thing that can be said, however, is that the first railway package has halted the decline. If we are to improve the situation, we now need fair framework conditions for rail transport in Europe."@en1
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