Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-11-14-Speech-1-039-000"
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"Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur and her colleagues for all their good and very intensive work and welcome the progress made by this Parliament to reach a compromise on this complex piece of legislation.
Secondly, debt write-off by Member States can only relate to so-called historical debt incurred before market opening.
Thirdly, the recast proposal does not modify the fundamental principles of infrastructure charging; it simply clarifies how these principles must be applied. New exemptions to infrastructure charging cannot be justified by any objective criteria.
Fourthly, national regulators must have the possibility to fulfil their oversight functions, including for cross-border traffic, and prevent problems.
Fifthly, experience shows that the competence of national regulators must be extended. However, some amendments would restrict their interventions to cases of discrimination and impede interventions to correct other undesirable distortions of the market.
Sixthly, Amendments 126 and 127 are problematic. The first would undermine the direct cost charging principle; the second would put an unnecessary administrative burden on infrastructure managers.
Seventhly, amendments restricting or removing powers for the Commission to adopt delegated or implementing acts often relate to non-essential elements. We need to make technical adjustments which, practically, should not be done in codecision.
I also need to draw your attention to the 2001 interinstitutional agreement on recasting. This agreement establishes a discipline to guarantee interinstitutional equilibrium, the right of initiative of the Commission and the right to make use of recasting as a key instrument for better law making.
Thank you for your attention.
The Commission will present its work programme for 2012 tomorrow. I have already confirmed on several occasions my intention to propose further substantial reform in the rail sector next year. Let me be clear at the outset that I do not seek change for change’s sake, but rather because we need to strengthen rail to ensure it offers attractive services, capable of playing a substantial role in the transport of the future.
But rail will only fulfil its potential if rail companies are innovative, cost-efficient and forward-looking. Although the Commission has been seeking this for the past two decades, change has been very slow. So next year’s package will revitalise the process, with proposals to open domestic passenger markets and review related public service obligation rules, with further structural change to ensure fair competitive conditions for newcomers and a refinement of the rules on standards and certification of rolling stock to make the approvals process quicker and more cost effective.
Completion of work on the current proposal, the recast, is a precondition for the 2012 package. I am fully aware that discussions in both Council and Parliament proved to be difficult and subject to intense lobbying from various stakeholders. They demonstrated that rail remains a conservative sector. In some cases, some of the principles and rules already agreed ten years ago have been challenged in an attempt to undermine ongoing infringement procedures.
Let us be clear: the status quo – or even worse, backward steps – is not an option!
A large majority of the 133 amendments adopted by the Committee on Transport (TRAN) are acceptable to the Commission, even though in some cases subject to certain redrafting. However, let me draw your attention to the fact that some specific amendments voted in TRAN and others now tabled to the plenary would substantially weaken the Commission proposal. These amendments would be a step backward compared to the text agreed by Council and even compared to existing law, which is not acceptable for the Commission.
Let me insist on some of these:
First, the issue of separation between infrastructure managers and railway undertakings will be subject to new proposals at the end of 2012 and therefore, all amendments in relation to Articles 6 and 7 are premature. The new provisions on separation of accounts are contrary to the principle of financial transparency and (at least as drafted) extremely difficult for the regulators to control.
The result would be that state money paid to support the infrastructure could instead leak to an incumbent train operator, giving it an unfair competitive advantage – and, at the same time, diminishing the funds available for investment by infrastructure managers."@en1
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