The EU Council’s new draft of the Capacity Management Regulation of the Greening Freight Package is causing adverse reactions, especially among the European rail freight sector. For example, the new version delays the Regulation’s implementation by three years. Moreover, the roles infrastructure managers (IMs) in the Regulation have been changed by the Council.
Some of the main changes made by the EU Council to the Capacity Management Regulation drafted by the European Commission (EC) concern IMs. Initially, one of the main aims of the regulation was to decrease the power in the hands of the IMs and make it easier for Railway Undertakings. However, the new version of the document paints a different picture, in which IMs seem to retain significant power.
What’s different for infrastructure managers?
More specifically, the rules set out in the regulation for IMs would no longer be binding. Implementing non-binding rules seem to be a trend in European policies, which it is often generally met with dissatisfaction. For example, the new document states that IMs ‘shall’ strive to follow the rules set out in the regulation. In the previous version, the ‘shall’ was a ‘must’, which entails a stricter approach.
IMs would also be allowed to cancel capacity rights if, over a period of one month, it “has been used for less than a threshold quota” unless this was due to force majeure. On the other hand, if such episodes became frequent, IMs would not be required to amend their capacity strategy. They would only have to inform, on a yearly basis, the regulatory body which can issue an opinion and make some recommendations, but cannot force a change.
Moreover, when drafting their capacity strategy and capacity model, IMs will no longer have to consult applicants or coordinate with other countries’ IMs. The capacity strategy will include planned infrastructure developments as well as forecasts on demand. The capacity model will go a little more in-depth, specifying volumes of available capacity and detailed information about possible capacity restrictions.
Shifting deadlines
Other than new guidelines for IMs, the Council’s proposal is suggesting changes to various deadlines concerning the Capacity Management Regulation. As mentioned above, the main change is that the entry into force of the Regulation as a whole is being shifted from 2026 to 2029. The first evaluation round, tasked to the EC, will also be shifted from five to ten years after the Regulation’s deployment. In other words, the Commission will be able to make an evaluation only in 2039, instead of 2031, as it was previously laid out.
The launch of the Regulation is not the only deadline that was moved in the Council’s proposal. The timeframe deployment of a few articles has also been delayed by two or three years compared to the initial draft from the EC. Moreover, the time period for the EC to assess whether rules should be made binding was changed. In the EC’s draft, this timeframe was set at five years after the starting date of the Regulation. However, the Council’s proposal wants to move this deadline to ten years after the Regulation. More specifically, with the Commission’s draft, it would have been possible to make rules binding by 2031, but now it has shifted to 2039.
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