Rail freight on track for 2007 target

Date: 27/04/06

A European Commission report next week (3 May) on the 'first railway package' of 2002 will show good progress towards implementing the legislation.

However, the report on opening up the EU internal rail freight market will also stress that European networks remain badly fragmented in places.

Only 8% of EU freight is now carried by rail, compared with 21% in 1970. The railway package hopes to make rail a more environmentally and economically attractive option for freight services.

It aims to improve reliability and open up the EU freight market by 2007.

Germany, Greece, Luxembourg and the UK were in the EU courts last year for their failure to implement the legislation before a 2003 deadline. Only Luxembourg has still not transposed the package into national law.

Elke Schänzler of the Community of European Railway and Infrastructure Companies (CER) said her group was "pleased now that, after three years, a legal framework for market opening is in place".

"Competition has started to grow between rail companies. The full opening of the rail freight market in 2007 will be the final step to complete the liberalisation process."

The Commission in a statement said improvements under the package were urgently needed, because EU rail systems were "based on the demands of the 19th century" and still made up "a mosaic of badly connected national rail systems" in places.

Article anticipates the adoption of a European Commission report on 3 May 2006 on the 'first railway package' of 2001, a number of legislative measures which aimed at opening up the EU's internal rail freight market. The report was to show good general progress towards implementing the legislation, with serious fragmentation of the networks remaining in some places.

European Commission: DG Energy and Transport: Rail Transport and Interoperability: The Infrastructure package http://ec.europa.eu/comm/transport/rail/overview/infrastructure_en.htm

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