Brussels, 28 January 2025
▶ In its upcoming new “Competitive Compass Plan” due to be published tomorrow, the EU “wants to slash red tape” – in order to boost the bloc’s faltering economy.
▶ The EU lacks competitiveness and private capital investment – and nowhere is this more evident than in the EU passenger rail sector.
▶ Yes, the EU can create competitiveness globally – but only if it has competitive markets within its own border first of all.
▶ Therefore, ALLRAIL believes that this new Plan must ensure a faster time to market for new competitors in passenger rail
If the market conditions are right, then competitive passenger rail operators will become backbone of EU transport, moving millions of people around the bloc in a fast and affordable manner.
Ensuring successful intramodal competition is crucial, and the evidence is clear:
- For example in Italy, we can see that “Passengers on the Turin-Salerno line have quadrupled in recent years”. It is no coincidence that this is one of the minority of routes in Europe where a private operator competes with the state-owned rail incumbent.
By contrast however, Member States and even the EU (European Investment Bank) intervene extensively in competition between railway companies by subsidising or giving loans to large state-owned companies, at the expense of smaller private ones.
- For example, most Member States are still directly awarding taxpayer subsidised Public Service Obligation contracts (PSOs) to their state-owned rail incumbents until 2033 or beyond.
ALLRAIL Secretary General Nick Brooks says: “If EU Member States want the growth of passenger rail, then the red tape that protects state-owned rail incumbents must end. For example, PSOs should be competitively tendered and rolling stock financing should become non-discriminatory much sooner.”
▶ In short, the EU Competitiveness Compass Plan must ensure a faster time to market.