▶ This month, the Italian Competition Authority AGCM launched an investigation into suspected abuse of a dominant position by the vertically integrated infrastructure manager RFI and its parent company, the state-owned railway company FS Group.

▶ Why? There are suspicions of “slowing down” and “hindrance” aimed at preventing the French state-owned operator SNCF from entering the Italian market.

▶ The irony being that this is very similar to what the Spanish state-owned operator Renfe complained about earlier this month in France, namely: “being hindered by the dominant position and vertical integration of the SNCF Group”.

It is remarkable that, in the same month, two state-owned rail operators are showing that vertical integration “hinders” their access to other EU markets. These cases make it abundantly clear that vertical integration is not compatible with the Single European Railway Area.

In addition, whilst SNCF, Renfe & Co. have state-backed funds to spend on long and convoluted legal proceedings in other EU markets, the real privately-owned new entrants need simple and safe processes to protect their investments.

After all, a large barrier to entry for real private new entrants is the time and financial cost of these complex & artificially induced legal processes.

The state-owned elephants are playing together in the pond of competition: they make lots of noise and splashes – but the splashes serve as a protection, keeping smaller animals from entering the water. 

ALLRAIL’s Aurélie Csizmazia says: “Barriers to entry must rapidly fall. Otherwise, the EU faces a situation where only state-owned incumbents are left competing among themselves, while all private investment flows to other transport modes instead.”