If it ain’t broke don’t fix it
A slew of Deutsche Bahn-backed reports has been released in the past few months arguing that the current model in Germany is not stifling competition. Earlier this month, a report from the Community of Rail Infrastructure Managers (CER), which represents the incumbent rail operators, said that a mandated separation would raise the costs of rail transport without delivering any proven boost to competition.
“The imposition of one single European model for all national rail systems would lead to increasing costs for all stakeholders,” said CER chairman Mauro Moretti. “Today member states’ budgets could not cope with the rising costs deriving from such a reform, nor could the European citizens.”
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Another report published by DB in July showed that competitiveness in the German rail market is actually increasing. This year, the market share of DB’s competitors passed the 20% mark for the first time, and operating performance on Germany’s rail network rose by 1.6%. But the Commission suspects this is only for those sections of the market where DB allows competitors to operate. CER, Deutsche Bahn and SNCF all say that member states should be allowed to choose whether they separate or not.
Patchwork patterns
Speaking to European Voice, Siim Kallas, European commissioner for transport, said such a patchwork of ownership patterns would discourage the development of a pan-EU rail market, which is the ultimate goal. “I cannot see how we can organise a functioning European network if you don’t separate railway services and operating rolling stock,” he said, adding that having different operating structures in each country hinders long-distance freight and passenger traffic.
“If we want to offer an alternative to road transport, then we have to have a pan-European functioning railway network that doesn’t only have very strong national railway companies like Deutsche Bahn and SNCF,” he added.
“There must be some kind of inter-operability, not only in technical terms but also of logistics and functioning and rules.”
Eurostar, which is the only dedicated high-speed international rail company in Europe, is a prime illustration of this problem. The company has had great difficulty expanding its operations beyond its current Paris-London-Brussels axis because of high charges for track access levied by national companies.
Kallas says the infrastructure initiatives to establish pan-European rail networks, such as the Ten-T network in the Connecting Europe facility, will be meaningless if the rail market structure is not reformed to foster greater competition. A country-by-country approach will not work, he says, because smaller countries are reluctant to open their rail market to Deutsche Bahn if Germany is not going to reciprocate.