the European Rail Freight Association exhorts the Council of the EU to remove the obstacles that prevent the development of the railway field



In sight of the next reunion of the ministers of the Transports of the European Union that will hold 8 October, the European Rail Freight Association (ERFA) has published an open letter inviting the Member States of the EU to remove the obstacles that prevent the development of the railway field putting of to risk the future. In particular, the association of the railway companies of the field cargo that represents the new operators entered in the market, invites the Council of the EU to remove potential of discrimination that the historical railway operators - the ERFA explains - has to they disposition and that they use against the new operators of the market. Moreover the association invites the Council to create the foundations in order to promote puts up private investments and the increase of the railway field.

In the letter the ERFA exhorts the States EU to modernize the current structure of governance of the railroads that - second the association - reduces the competitiveness of the railway field regarding the other modalities of transport and hinders the objective of modal transfer of the European Union. "The structure of governance that continues to being enforced in many European Countries - writes the ERFA - it opposes the arrived historical operators against the new ones on the railway market, giving to the historical operators the instruments in order to weaken and quite in order to expel the competitors from the market. The efforts of the new ones arrived in order to carry innovation, places of work and a greater efficiency in the railway market are discouraged and also put in danger, braking the necessary increase and the investments in the railway market. Rather than to promote a field railway healthy and dynamic, apt to compete with the other ways of transport, the new ones arrived are left to fight for survival".

"These - the association continues - are the reasons for which ERFA he is in favor of a parity of conditions for all the operators. A railway net in which the owner of the railway traces it is determined to privilege own operator to the detriment of the competitors will not succeed to exit from the inactivity and the decline towards which the railway field is addressed. A manager of the railway infrastructure that refuses the access or that it little offers slots interest for the new operators, that he uses tricks in order to brake or to block the new operators - denunciation the ERFA - this is the type of behavior to which we are assisting in the railway field".

ERFA considers on the road that "a railway in itself same weak person and closed field will not be able to never match up of the challenges placed from the world of the modern transport or the coming competitive pressures from the other modalities of transport, in particular from the transport".

In the letter the European association of the railway transport goods exhorts therefore the Member States "to support the important changes in the political pillar of the fourth railway package, to the aim to develop a railway field that operates in the interest of all, and to promote the development of the railroads in the interest of the market, the atmosphere and the society in its complex".

In particular, the ERFA invites the Council to do so as that the railway field is equipped of "a fort and independent manager of the infrastructure that works in the interest of all the railway users, the development of the railway net, in the interest of efficient railway connections and in order not to satisfy the interests of the single privileged historical operator, that transparent financial movements inside of the structures of holding are guaranteed "eliminating the risk of a treacherous competition between historical operators and new operators" and that Coordinating committees are instituted "that the users of the railroads work in collaboration with all assuring that the development of the railway net satisfies their requirements and guarantee a good return on the investments".