It is the objective of the Commission’s draft proposal to accelerate freight transport by rail. The intention is to give preference to freight trains with regard to allocating railway lines. That this would result in passenger transport losing out has probably not been considered by the Commission during its deliberations – in spite of warnings voiced at the Commission by AK and vida prior to the publication of the proposal.

The Report, which has now been passed by the Transport Committee of the European Parliament, provides that the infrastructure manager responsible for rail transport, following an initial assessment of the volume to be expected, reserves appropriate capacities. Reserves should also be budgeted for any ad hoc requirement. At worst, passenger transport would have to suffer delays because in accordance with the Regulation, preference would have to be given to freight trains.

The draft proposal will now be decided by the Plenum of the European Parliament in May. Hopes for a possible mitigation of the proposal do still exist at Council level, where negotiations are still taking place, results, however, have not yet been achieved.