Last week, the Swedish state-owned incumbent rail operator SJ announced that it is closing its commercially driven Uppsala – Stockholm service as a result of competition from taxpayer-subsidised Public Service Obligations (PSOs).

In her interview with Swedish news outlet DN, SJ’s CEO Monica Lingegård said: “Given the regions’ finances and the need to be careful with taxpayers’ money, you need to ensure that you do not compete with commercial traffic unnecessarily. That we let commercial traffic live and grow in a good way.”

ALLRAIL can only agree with SJ, as this is one of the cornerstones of European competition law: traffic that can be operated commercially should be done so without the risk of being unfairly outcompeted by taxpayer money.

Yet, it seems SJ’s stance on taxpayer-funded competition changes depending on which side of the subsidy cheque they are on:

• SJ’s taxpayer-subsidised Stockholm – Hamburg – Berlin night train ‘SJ Euronight’ competes with existing commercially driven services.
• In Norway, SJ claims to welcome more competition, yet at the same time lobbies the Swedish and Norwegian governments for direct taxpayer funding to run trains from Stockholm to Trondheim. 

ALLRAIL’s Policy Coordinator Katharina Dekeyser says: “Creating good conditions for commercial traffic, where competition between different operators can take place on equal terms, will benefit passenger rail in the long run.

EU Member States can encourage more train traffic by, for example, reducing track access charges, abolishing VAT on train tickets and, not least, reducing the bureaucratic hassle of vehicle approvals.”