The Council adopted its position at first reading with a view to the adoption of a Regulation and of the European Parliament amending Regulation (EC) No 91/2003 on rail transport statistics, as regards the collection of data on goods, passengers and accidents.
The aim of the Commission’s proposal is to modify Regulation (EC) No 91/20031 in order to update, simplify and optimise the existing legal framework for European statistics on rail transport and to align it with the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), as far as delegated and implementing powers is concerned.
The main elements of the Council position are as follows:
Statistics on the transport of goods and passengers by rail: according to the draft Regulation, these statistics are necessary to enable the Commission to monitor and develop the common transport policy, as well as the transport elements of policies relating to the regions and to trans-European networks.
Statistics on rail safety are also necessary to enable the Commission to prepare and monitor Union action in the field of transport safety.
A new recital highlights that it is necessary to establish appropriate cooperation agreements between the Commission’s services and relevant entities with a view to providing easily accessible and useful information to Union citizens and other stakeholders on rail transport safety and interoperability of the rail system.
Data collection: Member States shall report under Annexes A and C data for undertakings that have:
- a total volume of goods transport of at least 200 000 000 tonne-km or at least 500 000 tonnes;
- a total volume of passenger transport of at least 100 000 000 passenger-km.
Reporting under Annexes A and C shall be optional in respect of undertakings falling below the thresholds referred to above.
Quality of data: Member States shall take all measures necessary to ensure the quality of the data transmitted. The Commission shall adopt implementing acts specifying the detailed arrangements, structure, periodicity and comparability elements for the standard quality reports.
Delegated powers: the Commission shall be empowered to adopt delegated acts to adapt the technical definitions and to provide for additional technical definitions, when needed to take into account new developments which require a certain level of technical detail to be defined in order to ensure the harmonisation of statistics.
Reports on implementation: by 31 December 2020 and every four years thereafter, the Commission, after consulting the European Statistical System Committee, shall submit a report to the European Parliament and to the Council on the implementation of this Regulation and on future developments.