The EU’s Council and Parliament have come to a provisional agreement on the much-anticipated Capacity Regulation. A step forward for international rail freight, one should think, but disappointments are right around the corner.
Just two weeks ago, an alliance of stakeholders warned that the Capacity Regulation, in its state at the time, would leave European rail “fragmented”. The lion’s share of the problems concerned the so-called European Frameworks, which were supposed to harmonise capacity allocation on the rail network, traffic and crisis management and performance reviews of national infrastructure managers.
In the latest version of the Regulation, those infrastructure managers would have to agree among themselves on the implementation of those frameworks. The stakeholders criticised that plan, saying that this could have been done earlier and without the provisions in the Capacity Regulation. In other words, the impact of the provisions in the Regulation are not nearly as helpful as they could be.
No change in the provisional agreement
A quick read-through of the EU’s press release suggests that not much has changed in that regard. “National infrastructure managers will remain in the lead of the coordination and planning processes, so that each member state can ensure that the planning and use of their rail capacity is consistent with their objectives and policy decisions”, it reads.
The role of the European Network of Infrastructure Managers (ENIM) is reduced to an advisory role: it is tasked with the development of European frameworks for capacity, traffic and crisis management, as well as performance review. In this context, “frameworks” translates into guidelines and criteria.
How the national infrastructure managers follow up on those guidelines is entirely up to themselves, acting in good faith and cooperation with neighbouring IMs. “The provisional agreement allows member states to provide strategic guidance to factor in the unique circumstances of each of their rail networks. However, they must coordinate with one another and ensure consistency between their priorities, especially with neighbouring member states.”
The Capacity Regulation has not been adopted, but the conclusion of a provisional agreement between Council and Parliament suggests that the final adoption of the document is near-certain.