EU DEMANDS RAIL PRIVATISATION ACROSS EUROPE

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: march 2013 :: RMTnews 16 European transport commissioner Siim Kallas has unveiled proposals for a fourth rail package designed to break- up national rail networks and hand the entire industry over to the private sector. The proposals demand a split between rail infrastructure and operations and mandatory competitive tendering procedures for public service contracts in order to abolish national publicly-owned rail services. The unelected commission had originally sought a full separation between the companies that own railway infrastructure and those that operate train services as has been imposed in Britain by the Tories using EU directives (see timeline). This approach, known as “unbundling”, has allowed Germany’s Deutsche Bahn, Europe’s largest state-owned operator and France’s SNCF to massively expand into foreign rail markets but both countries are opposed to having this EU model imposed on themselves. DB has expanded considerably in the rail freight market, with the purchase of the freight section of the Dutch railway company NS (now DB Schenker Rail Nederland), EWS in Britain and DSB goods in Denmark amongst others. SNCF has also expanded through acquisitions, raising the spectre of virtual monopolies on rail freight replacing former national companies or a potential duopoly between SNCF and DB in most of Western Europe. But Germany has long resisted attempts to break up DB supported by France’s SNCF, the second-biggest operator, which has been separated from the infrastructure provider. However, last year the new French government has indicated that it could reverse the split. Following pressure from Berlin and Paris, Kallas has compromised by only demanding that remaining vertically integrated operators install internal firewalls to prevent the infrastructure manager from cross-subsidising train operations. The commission has also inserted a so-called “retaliation clause” to allow other member states to bar other national operators from competing for service in their markets, if the vertically integrated operator had not erected internal barriers to the commission’s satisfaction. As a result last month Germany allowed the UK rail company National Express, which was stripped of the East Coast mainline in 2009, to capture two 15-year regional rail contracts from DB that EU DEMANDS RAIL PRIVATISATION ACROSS EUROPE Unions and politicians warn further EU rail ‘liberalisation’ means dangerous fragmentation, private rail cartels and huge fare increases PROTEST: RMT joins a mass demonstration in P aris in 2008 against EU demands for privatisation