The EU Council’s latest proposal for the Capacity Management Regulation (CMR) of the Greening Freight Package is bringing significant changes to the role of the European Network of Infrastructure Managers (ENIM). First and foremost, the new draft states that “ENIM shall have no policy-making or regulatory powers”.
The role of ENIM has been one of the key aspects of the CMR as infrastructure managers (IMs) across Europe enjoy a somewhat privileged position. To mitigate the IMs’ power, the EU Parliament proposed to include the implementation of a European Railway Undertaking Platform (ERP) that would act as ENIM’s counterpart.
However, the EU Council seems to have taken a different approach. The creation of ERP has disappeared from the Council’s draft. Thus, instead of decreasing the power of IMs by creating a platform safeguarding the interests of Railway Undertakings (RUs), the Council seems just to want to mitigate it by changing the role of ENIM.
Who is replacing the ERP?
Instead of establishing the ERP, according to the Council’s proposal, ENIM should designate a Network Coordinator. The EU Council suggested RailNetEurope, a non-profit organisation that claims to provide support for Railway Undertakings in an international context. The support provided by the Network Coordinator would take the shape of a transport market study to be published at least every five years.
Who can join ENIM?
The composition of ENIM would not significantly change, as it would keep including one representative per IM from EU member states. However, the Council proposal mentions that IMs from countries part of the extended TEN-T network shall also participate in ENIM. In other words, this new paragraph would include Ukraine and Moldova’s IMs in ENIM, albeit they would not retain any decisional power. In the previous version, ENIM members only needed a simple majority to implement decisions. However, the Council is now proposing to introduce a threshold of two-thirds.
Also read:
- Capacity Regulation deployment could be delayed by three years
- ‘Policymakers are giving up on rail freight goals’
- EU Member States are not satisfied with the Greening Freight Package
