CAMPAIGNING AGAINST EU RAIL ‘LIBERALISATION’

RMT helpline 0800 3763706 :: march 2008 :: RMTnews 25 “Colleagues, we are here today to protest against the European Union’s drive to take us back to the age of the rail privateers. Last October the European Parliament voted for the EU’s so-called ‘third rail package’ to open international rail passenger traffic to ‘market competition’ by 2010. Predictably, the EU portrayed this major step towards a fully privatised passenger rail market as a ‘victory for consumers’, claiming new rights for passenger compensation. However, reality reveals that compensation is only if train operators are responsible for delays, not if they are caused by engineering work, or bad weather. EU Directive 91/440/EEC creates a “vertical split” between train operations and rail infrastructure, so that severe disruption caused by storms, would not leave rail companies facing compensation claims. Train companies that operate over international routes from 2010 will also be able to practice ‘cabotage’ – meaning to stop and take on passengers in countries they cross. This latest ‘third rail package’ marks the next major step in EU rail privatisation since rail freight was liberalised by the ‘second rail package’ in 2003, when trans-Europe networks were opened to competition, followed by international freight and domestic networks from March 31, 2006. A similar staged ‘liberalisation’ process is now being applied to passenger rail regardless of the consequences for socially necessary regional and local train services. The European Commission will now report on the next stage of ‘liberalising’ domestic rail services by 31 December 2012. This hugely complicated process, proposed by German MEP Jarzembowski, amounts to little more than the enforced mass privatisation of the entire rail sector across Europe, promoted by corporate lobbyists. French MEP Francis Wurtz quite rightly told the European Parliament that such a path was “dangerous for public employment and service and a path subjected to an obsession with competition and the market". The third rail package is a dramatic escalation of the drive to transform rail services from a social railway towards a rail business with an investment bias towards freight and business travel and away from regional and urban rail services. The latest moves directly benefit Europe’s largest rail interests and the development of private rail monopolies. The effect of EU rail privatisation will increase downward pressure on jobs and wages in the rail sector and inevitably undermine occupational and environmental safety standards. European rail unions needs to develop strategies to defeat the social dumping which will undoubtedly follow. RMT is organising an international conference of railway trade unions in London to discuss these issues on June 17. We hope to see you all there.” CAMPAIGNING AGAINST EU RAIL ‘LIBERALISATION’ RMT member Roselyne Fong addressed an international protest in the French town of Calais on the ITF Rail Action day against EU diktats enforcing the privatisation of rail networks