GREAT EU RAIL SELL-OFF

RMTnews :: january 2006 :: www.rmt.org.uk 22 GREAT EU RAIL SELL-O Brussels introduced the so-called ‘third rail package’ last month, which orders member states to comply with various rail directives by 2010, effectively breaking up national rail networks and handing them over to the private sector. However, recent national rail strikes in France last November showed rail workers’ attitudes in EU member states have not been reconciled to rail privatisation. This is despite the Commission’s institutional approach, based on stealth and secrecy, to opening up national markets to ‘liberalisation’. In fact, the fast-approaching date of January 2006 for full ‘open access’ to rail freight competition has led to a hardening of attitudes amongst the four largest French rail unions representing the majority of rail workers. French rail company SNCF’s freight reorganisation, introduced as a result of EU rail freight liberalisation rules, is being fought hard by rail workers. Recent strike action has produced strenuous denials by French ministers and SNCF president, Louis Gallois, of any intention to privatise SNCF. Mr Gallois said Europe's railways were all public companies except in the UK, “and the English experience is not a great reference”. Moreover, British railway consultant Robert Watson believes the EU may well have had an adverse effect on the rail system because "open access has destabilised the European railroad environment". EU RULES Brussels began the drive to privatise EU rail networks with the introduction of Council Directive 91/440/EEC on July 29 1991, which demanded an historically unprecedented liberalisation model of a “vertical split” separating rail infrastructure from operation of rail services. It stipulates: • operational autonomy for railway operators • separation of the infrastructure from service operations (as an absolute minimum - although not exclusively - for accounting purposes) • open access for international undertakings • introduction of track access charges If this sounds familiar, it is because this was exactly the basis of British Rail privatisation Diktats from Brussels demanding the ‘liberalisation’ of EU rail networks within the next four years are being met by protests and the refusal of member states to implement EU directives DISASTER: The British experience of implementing EU diktats has proved disastrous for rail workers, passengers and the industry