Rail transport statistics

All the changes made by the Council are acceptable to the Commission because they aim at harmonising the data collection with the rail safety Directive, at guaranteeing a realistic coverage of the data or at respecting the current confidentiality provisions. There is also an annexed declaration from the Commission on the use of NUTS2 in Annex F of the proposal. In a statement on Annex F, the Commission states that it will take account of methodological developments and practical uses of the data to re-examine the regional breakdown to be used in Annex F. If appropriate Annex F shall be adapted in accordance with the procedure specified in Article 11, paragraph 2. It should be added that the Commission states that because of the monopolistic structure of the rail transport market, it is slightly disappointed with the confidentiality provisions applied for the disclosure of the data. However, even if the changes of the Article 7(1) and of the Annex I restrict the possibilities of the use of the dissemination of the statistical data, they still are in line with the original proposal of the Commission or the current statistical law and practise. Therefore, the common position is acceptable to the Commission. Overall, the Commission expresses a favourable opinion on the common position.�