The situation concerning rail freight in Romania continues to be controversial regarding the transition from soon-to-be bankrupt state-owned operator CFR Marfă to the newly established Carpatica Feroviar Romania (CF). According to Simona Istrate, director of Romania’s private rail association OPSFPR, a new wave of illegal state aid is on the horizon with “a draft law to be approved in urgent procedure to increase the share capital (of CF, ndr) by 300 million euro”.
CF was officially founded in October to replace CFR Marfă after the European Commission found that the company enjoyed illegal state aid which distorted the market. Unable to pay the debt back, CFR Marfă had to be discontinued. However, the transition will see the new entity taking over everything but “the obligation to repay the unlawful state aid”, and might even receive some as well, Istrate told RailFreight.com.
The 300 million euros increase proposed in the draft law should be used by CF to purchase assets from its predecessor, she claimed. These include “locomotives, wagons, fixed assets, inventory items, land and buildings necessary for the maintenance and repair of rolling stock purchased directly from CFR Marfă”.
This measure represents a new illegal state aid, this time benefiting CF. This transfer will circumvent the principle of economic discontinuity.
In other words, Romanian authorities are trying “to get rid of the provisions of the European Commission, which in 2020 issued the decision to recover the illegal state aid granted to CFR Marfă”, Istrate said. This is highlighted by the fact that the draft law states that CF will take over CFR Marfă’s transport contracts as well, she pointed out.
From CFR Marfă to Carpatica Feroviar Romania
CFR Marfă’s last profitable year was 2007. The official liquidation is scheduled for March next year, once CF is expected to start operations. However CF needs to first acquire rolling stock. According to Istrate, this process should have been carried out through a public tender, but the new draft law seems to say otherwise. “The rail freight community is concerned about this new approach”, she stressed.
What is happening in Romania is quite similar to the situation in France, despite the paths being slightly different. In both cases, the state-owned rail freight operators have been discontinued and will be replaced by new entities. However, the new companies replacing French Fret SNCF will lose 20 per cent of the volumes, which were distributed among private operators. In Romania, the replacement seems to be coming with no consequences.
“In this scenario, private operators remain the only ones affected by the non-implementation of the recovery decision and the Romanian rail freight market continues to suffer the consequences of the same unfair practices, by setting up this rudimentary and completely unlawful mechanism proposed by the Romanian authorities”, Istrate concluded.