The Committee on Transport and Tourism adopted the
recommendation for second reading contained in the report by
Michael CRAMER (Greens/EFA, DE) on the Council position at first
reading with a view to the adoption of a directive of the European
Parliament and of the Council on railway safety
(recast).
As Council’s first reading position is in
conformity with the agreement reached in the trilogues, the
committee recommended accepting it without further
amendment.
The committee also took note of a Commission statement
annexed to this resolution on explanatory documents. In this
statement, the Commission recalled that the European Parliament,
the Council and the Commission that the information Member States
supply to the Commission as regards the transposition of directives
in national law 'must be clear and precise' in order to facilitate
the achievement by the Commission of its task overseeing the
application of Union law. In the present case, explanatory
documents could have been useful to this end. It regretted that the
final text does not contain provisions to this
effect.
At the end of informal negotiations between Parliament
and Council, an agreement was reached. The main achievements of the
European Parliament are as follows:
- the European Railway Agency (ERA) will play a key role
in issuing safety certificates for railway
undertakings: the ERA will be
competent to issue safety certificates for railway undertakings
operating in more than one Member State. Railway undertaking
operating within one Member State can choose to be certified either
by the ERA or a national safety authority;
- improved safety culture and occurrence reporting in
railway undertakings and infrastructure managers: this will encourage staff to report occurrences
under conditions of confidentiality and enable railway industry to
learn lessons and to improve the work practices. Moreover, there
will be training programmes for staff, including arrangements on
the physical and psychological fitness;
- Member States will be obliged to monitor compliance of
train drivers with rules on working, driving and rest
periods;
- the ERA may establish a tool for exchange of
information on safety risks among relevant actors. This will
further facilitate cross-border exchange of information in case
there is a safety risk, e.g. if the same type of rolling stock is
used in more than one Member State;
- improve information policy towards relatives of
victims and improved coordination of emergency
services;
- the ERA will provide to investigative bodies with
technical assistance and secretariat
for cooperation of investigating bodies. Investigating bodies would
do "peer reviews" with the aim to monitor their effectiveness and
independence. However, since ERA issues authorisations, it can't be
directly involved in investigation due to potential conflicts of
interest.