PRIVATISING EUROPE’S RAILWAYS

12 Trade unionists from across Europe picketed an EU Transport Ministers meeting in Luxembourg last month which adopted a ‘common approach’ to privatising railway networks across the continent. The proposals are contained in the EU’s the 4th Railway Package which was first unveiled over two years ago but has been held up due to division among member states. Ministers agreed a so-called ‘political pillar’ of the rail package which demands independency of infrastructure managers and open access competition for domestic rail passenger services within the negotiations with the European Parliament. The European Transport Federation handed over a petition to the meeting demanding an end to open access competition and compulsory tendering proposals for rail public passenger services across Europe. “Don’t make public transport workers and their jobs subject to competition, don’t allow a race to the bottom on working conditions and ensure job security for workers by a compulsory transfer of staff in the case of change of operator. “We do not want to see the railway sector turned into another opportunity for private actors to make profits” said ETF deputy general secretary Sabine Trier. European transport commissioner Siim Kallas first unveiled the proposals designed to further breakup of national rail networks and hand them over to the private sector back in 2013. The proposals demand a formal split between rail infrastructure and operations and mandatory competitive tendering procedures for public service contracts in order to abolish national publicly-owned monopolies operating rail services. The 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 public monopolies 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. As a result many foreign state-backed companies now run three-quarters of Britain’s rail franchises and use the profits paid for by passengers here to improve services and cut fares in their own countries. In fact, a German Transport Ministry spokesperson has openly admitted such a strategy. “We're skimming profits from the entire Deutsche Bahn operation and ensuring that it is anchored in our budget - that way we can make sure it is invested in the rail network here in Germany,” he said. RMT research also shows that Dutch state firm Abellio now operates a network in Britain Unions protest in Luxembourg against EU plans to impose rail privatisation across Europe RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: october 2015 :: RMTnews PRIVATISING EUROPE’S RAILWAYS