Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-09-24-Speech-1-127"
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"en.20070924.17.1-127"2
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"Mr President, allow me to say at the outset that I share the general satisfaction with this Railway Package.
For my own part, I advocate a staged approach. Not all of us will achieve the same level of readiness and, moreover, even when we have our impressive directives in place, there will be entire countries that will still not open their networks. I am thinking here of Ireland because it has no international lines, and possibly also of Finland because it is, to some extent, the end of the line and would be more inclined – quite legitimately – to open its network to Russia; and I am thinking particularly of all the countries that have different load gauges and different track gauges.
In other words, the big challenge and the first challenge, when we talk of creating a Europe-wide rail culture, is interoperability, and that is where we need to focus our efforts over the coming years. This Europe-wide rail culture will of course require directives about liberalisation but we need to begin by investing in the networks to make technical interoperability feasible. Opening the market to competition between France and Spain will mean little, because so long as we keep different track gauges we will not increase either freight or passenger traffic.
The report on certification of train drivers can be seen, in some respects, as a report on interoperability. What is required is social interoperability that will allow drivers from different countries to think of themselves as Europeans, rather than nationals of a particular state. It is my belief that if we can move beyond national cultures on the railways, then we shall be able to ensure that the railways have a future. As road traffic and air traffic continue to grow, that is an urgent task.
We have come a long way. We had four texts when we set out and we have ended up with three. We started work in 2004 and here we are now in September 2007. In other words, we certainly took the slow train rather than the TGV. It has been a long journey but we are now at the end of the line. We have made it, I believe, thanks first and foremost to the considerable determination of the Members of this House and the fact that they pulled together: I refer particularly to all the parliamentary groups and to the three rapporteurs, who are with us today, but credit also goes to everyone, including the shadow rapporteurs, who did his or her bit.
We are also indebted to the European Commission, and I should like to thank Commissioner Barrot and his colleagues for their cooperation at difficult stages, because the conciliation procedure was extremely tricky and the odds appeared to be against us.
We are indebted, too, to the German Presidency and to the German Federal Minister for Transport, Mr Tiefensee, who invested considerable personal effort: he participated in a number of conciliation meetings and I believe that without his determination to succeed we should not have this Railway Package before us today. I am thinking in particular of the most problematic text, namely the proposal on passengers’ rights. In that regard, I would also pay tribute to the work done by Dirk Sterckx.
The degree of resistance to rail passengers’ rights is a somewhat curious thing. It is true that railways are different from roads inasmuch as they are subject to remote control. It is also true that delays can sometimes have a knock-on effect; it is true that security has to come first and that trains may be delayed for quite respectable reasons. Nonetheless, we are lagging decades behind air transport in this respect, and the obstacle we encountered was the tremendous conservatism of the European railway world: its tremendous resistance to passengers’ rights – which was in the end overcome because we agreed to derogations that may leave us looking at implementation in 15 years’ time, around 2023.
So, while we may be proud of this text, we have less to shout about with regard to the timetable: it is not really good enough, in my opinion, to introduce passengers’ rights over a possible 15-year timescale if our aim – and it is our aim today – is to develop rail travel.
I must say that I am also personally pleased by the introduction of a European rail driver’s licence – for that is what is meant by ‘certification of train drivers’. It is a somewhat complex matter. Georg Jarzembowki outlined the details pretty well, and I believe that what we have before us reflects excellent work by the Members of this House on all sides. I am grateful to Mr Jarzembowki’s group, which does not always take such an open approach on these matters but which, in this case, was particularly supportive. I should like to think that what has been achieved sets a good example because it came out of dialogue between both sides of the industry in question. It is, in effect, an example that can be held up to anyone doubting the capacity of the European Union to be a Union of its citizens. I think it deserves to be publicised.
Let me say, too, that I attach great importance to the commitment we have made – a commitment obtained by the European Parliament – concerning train staff responsible for security tasks. These people are not train drivers but they nonetheless save lives because, on board trains, it is their job to do so and it is very important that there should be a system of certification for them, even if it will naturally be at a different level from driver certification. I hope, therefore, that the clause incorporating that commitment, which we succeeded in having included, will be honoured.
Lastly, with regard to opening up and liberalising rail networks, I believe that if we are serious about creating a Europe-wide rail culture, we have to begin by accepting that other people’s trains will run across our territory. That prospect is unavoidable."@en1
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