Committee on Transport and Tourism Ordinary meeting
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TRAN European Parliament
Follow its sittingsElissavet Vozemberg-Vrionidi
So now we can proceed to our first vote this morning, which is on the TRAN opinion to BUDG and CONT committees concerning the proposal for the performance framework regulation. Yes, Mr. Arlanz, you have the floor.
Borja Giménez Larraz
Yes, thank you, Chair. Dear colleagues, before we proceed to the vote, I would like to make very clear about the position of our political group. The EPP supports the compromise amendments on Annex 1. We believe that the compromise provides a more realistic and workable framework for transport investment and allows TRAN to provide useful input to the lead committees. However, I also want to be absolutely clear that the EPP is fully opposed to the DNSH principle and to the other horizontal provisions of the regulation.
So our support for this compromise must therefore not be understood in any way as support for the DNSH. The compromise we are voting only affects, concerns Annex 1. This is a deliberate choice. We believe TRAN can add the most value by providing concrete input on Annex 1 while leaving the discussion on DNSH to the lead committee, BUDG and CONT. Thank you very much.
Elissavet Vozemberg-Vrionidi
Thank you very much for the statement. We keep it on the records. So we proceed to the votes. Yes, let me see just a moment, please. We have compromise 1.
Who is in favor? Who is against? Abstentions? It's adopted. Sorry, yes, it is adopted.
We go now to the final vote. It's a roll-call vote. We open the vote. We close the vote. 31 in favor, 6 against, 2 abstentions.
It's adopted. Thank you. Now we move on to the second one on the provisional agreement reached in the first and concluding trilogue that took place on 3rd June on the Eurovignette file. It's a single roll call vote, so let's proceed to the final vote, to the one vote. I open the vote.
We close the vote. 30 in favor, 5 against, 4 abstentions. Adopted. Now we have reached the last vote for today. You are asked to confirm the provisional agreement reached at the trilogue on the 25th June on the revised regulation on the enforcement of passenger rights in the Union, rapporteur Mr. Matteo Ricci.
We go directly to the vote. We open the vote. We close the vote. 39 in favor, nothing against, nothing abstention. Congratulations, Mr. Ricci.
Of course it is adopted.
Thank you very much. If somebody wants to leave, please quietly because we have to proceed.
Elissavet Vozemberg-Vrionidi
So dear colleagues, let's now move on to the next point of today's agenda, which is the passenger package comprised on three proposals which the European Commission published in May 2026.
Something is wrong with the lights, anyway. As you may remember, the Commission's political guidelines for 2024-2029 announced by President von der Leyen in the summer of 2024 committed it to propose a single digital booking and ticketing regulation to ensure that Europeans can buy one single ticket on a single platform and get passenger rights for their whole trip. The passenger package, which will be debated today, follows on from the commitment. It seeks to meet those objectives in three proposed regulations as follows. The rail ticketing proposal aims to make it easier for consumers to compare and buy rail tickets online, especially for cross-border journeys or those involving more than one rail operator.
In everyday language, the internet has revolutionized air travel and hotel booking, but to a lesser extent train travel, which we feel could benefit more from digital solutions. The proposal on protecting passenger rights' single tickets is essentially an update of Regulation 2021/582 on rail passenger rights, which entered into force in 2023. The proposal aims to strengthen protection for passengers on multi-operator, longer and cross-border journeys, especially in situations where delays or cancellations in one leg of the journey jeopardize the outcome of the whole journey. The proposal on multimodal booking has as its objective to improve the functioning and transparency of digital passenger transport ticketing market across all transport modes. Surveys indicate that it is still difficult today to plan, compare and book multimodal journeys online.
Following this brief introduction, it is my pleasure to welcome here DG MOVE Director-General Magda Kopczyńska to our committee to explain the content of the passenger package more fully. So, Mrs. Kopczyńska, you have first the floor for 15 minutes, please. Thank you very much.
Thank you, thank you, Madam Chair.
Magda Kopczyńska
Good morning, everybody. Very happy to be here, especially the first meeting after holidays. I took note that out of 38 MEPs, two didn't have good holidays and two didn't comment on the holidays. I hope this package, among other things, will make sure that next summer everybody will have good holidays. But before, please allow me, because this is the first meeting we have after summer holidays, please allow me, before I embark on the package, to make a few comments on a sort of horizontal issues linked to transport policies, because I thought it's a good opportunity to do it.
You will know as well as anybody else that transport sector is continuously facing a series of challenges, a lot of them coming from situation outside the EU. Recent weeks and the events in the Strait of Hormuz have again shown that transport remains exposed to those geopolitical tensions. And priorities for the EU are the same. We want the Strait of Hormuz to be reopened. We want transit remaining free of tolls and service fees.
And of course, we want to make sure that crews are protected. That will ultimately require peace agreement, and I don't need to tell any of you how complicated this peace agreement seems to be from day to day.
When it comes to jet fuel markets, they remain tight. Prices remain volatile, but we haven't seen shortages, including during the summer peak, which was a bit of a concern. And for the time being now, we do not expect those shortages in the short term. So that's for the fuels. We know that road transport is under particular pressure because fuel accounts for a large of operating costs and many operators work on very thin margins.
We have been in contact with Member States. A few of them have taken measures to support the sector following Commission's adoption of the Middle East crisis temporary state aid framework. As I said, situation remains volatile. It's a bit difficult to envisage where it would go and how quickly it will normalize. But this summer and especially last weeks saw Russian attacks on civilian cargo ships and port infrastructure and border infrastructure of Ukraine very much intensified.
The alternative route for transport of cargo and goods via the Danube is under significant threat and railway infrastructure in Ukraine has been attacked as well.
We have been discussing with Ukraine but also with neighboring countries what we can do to assist Ukraine in those in those difficult times. And the last point I wanted to make, the summer's extreme weather events have again underlined that we need to find urgent solutions to strengthen transport system's resilience to climate-related disruption and also to continue working on advancing climate action. Different challenges stemming from different factors, but as we all know, transport is always on the one hand affected by such challenges, but on the other hand, transport is the solution that has to be well-functioning if we want to have a way to deal with impact of such challenges. Now going to the passenger package and and big big thanks to Madam Chair for your introduction because you have saved a few words and a few points that I wanted to make why we put this this package on the table. I would also like to use this opportunity to already thank members of this committee for quite a positive and welcoming messages that we heard back from you when we put the proposal on the table.
So let me briefly talk you through the three pieces of legislation. I will start with the regulation on multimodal booking because as as Madam Chair has said, multimodal ticketing market has not really emerged on its own.
We believe that EU action is needed to address clear market failures. Travelers, all of us, still lack platforms that will let us compare and choose the best travel options. We, travelers, have too little information on carbon footprint of the itineraries offered. And in addition, or even more importantly, transport operators, especially smaller ones, do not have fair access to key platforms. So what we have tried to do with the regulation is to find ways of addressing that in a in a minimal necessary way.
The regulation on multimodal ticketing will apply to both business-to-business and business-to-consumer platforms, again to address both the needs of travelers but also the needs of of transport operators in all long-distance transport modes. What we would like to make sure is that we have a comprehensive coverage across the entire transport system or market chain. What is very important here is this process of designation for the largest platforms.
We want to keep it light touch to make sure that administrative burden is as minimal as possible. We want to make sure that information that will be required from the platforms will be only what is needed, what is necessary, and only the largest platforms are proposed to to notify the relevant authorities and comply with rules ensuring fairness in the commercial agreements. The fairness word is quite important in the context of this of this specific regulation. I would like to recall all of us that we propose that SMEs are fully excluded from the scope in terms of the obligations, but at the same time, they should be the beneficiaries of the proposed new rules. That's on the business-to-business.
When it comes to consumers, a few points I wanted to raise is first of all that offers are always ranked in a neutral manner. And this is very important. We want to make sure at the end that rankings that come up on the platforms are done in such a way that they reflect what is best for users than what is most profitable for the platform.
We also introduced the proposal to have a possibility to clearly display greenhouse gas emission impacts whenever this information is provided, excuse me, provided by operators. Of course, as any piece of legislation, also this one will need an enforcement network to be put in place by Member States. But what we propose is that Member States can rely and build on structures that they already have, also to make sure that different enforcement bodies are linked to help with coherence at the EU level. Moving, and I do it only for the sake of time, I could talk for 15 minutes about this piece of legislation and as much time for the other two, but I'm keen to hear your questions. Looking at the rail ticketing regulation, before I go into details of that, I would like to take this opportunity to explain and recall why it is that we decided to specifically look at rail in the context of a proposal of a package that is ultimately addressing multimodal travelling.
Rail's strength is only as big and as effective as the connectivity. Passengers can travel across the EU if they can effectively combine different services offered by different train operators to make sure that they can reach all destinations. So passengers must have an opportunity to find, to compare, combine and book tickets from different operators.
And as we all know, it is not yet the case in the rail sector. Rail is also distinctive because direct competition is more limited than in other transport modes. Around 60 percent, six zero, of passenger rail services in the EU are operated under public service obligations. In these cases, there is often no alternative operator. And the rail ticketing market also has its specifics.
The most important ticketing platforms in the rail sector are often, not always, but often owned by incumbent rail operators which do hold a strong position in the rail services market itself. This dual risk can or does create a risk that a strong market position in one area can be used to disadvantage competitors in another. Hence the proposed regulation wants to address the needs and requirements from both angles.
We come forward with a sharing and hosting obligation which we believe will help consumers and rail operators. So when it comes to the sharing obligation, when a rail ticketing platform requests, sorry, request is the wrong, is the important word, requests to host an operator's tickets, the operator must enter into a commercial agreement with that platform to make that possible. This obligation applies to all railway service providers. The hosting obligation applies to platforms that are vertically integrated with a railway undertaking holding a market share of 50% or more of the national passenger rail market. We call, we refer to those platforms as indispensable.
We were looking for a word that will be relatively new in the context of of this of this regulation. And when an operator approaches such an indispensable platform and requests to host their ticket, the platform must enter into a commercial agreement with the operator to enable this. And in addition, the regulation envisages timing under which such commercial agreement has to happen.
In addition, when it comes to those indispensable platforms and that regardless of whether such a commercial agreement is in place, those platforms will be required to display all rail services in that Member State where the vertically integrated railway undertaking holds significant market power. Basically, what we want to achieve is that all rail services are visible to consumers in Member States. Because one of the things that we have found in the context of of of impact assessment, in the context of consultations and many discussions with consumers and with with companies is that there is a strong feeling that consumers simply lack information about the possibility to use rail services. As I we we try to make sure that whatever this regulation requires is done within a specific specific period of time, as I said, there are deadlines to agreements under hosting and sharing obligation. And what is very important, this regulation also includes so-called FRAND provisions, meaning terms for those agreements have to be fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory.
Because we want to make sure that whatever comes out of that regulation will effectively protect the weaker party in both the sharing and hosting scenarios. And lastly, the regulation will also introduce a what we call a booking horizon, meaning that tickets should be available for sale at least five months in advance. Because we we've come to the conclusion that this is necessary, on the on the one hand, for consumers to really know what will be available if they are to go for this single ticket in future. But also providers should be able to adjust fares and add new services, having being aware that this time horizon will apply and that those services will need to be included in the in the in the working timetable. And the last piece of legislation proposed concerning passenger rights.
What we have seen is that indeed, because of maybe not sufficient practice in the rail sector, passengers are often at present not protected when there is a delay or cancellation by one railway undertaking and then it causes them to miss an a connection.
So we came up with a framework where passengers traveling on a single ticket, and this concept of single ticket is quite crucial for this piece of legislation, they will benefit from full protection. If they miss a connection under such a ticket through no fault of their own, they will be entitled to rerouting or reimbursement as well as assistance and compensation. And this is a setup of passenger rights that are well known from other modes or other means of functioning in the rail sector. When it comes to liability in such a situation, the liability will rest with the railway undertaking responsible for the disruption. We also introduced very important safeguards to make sure that passengers don't find themselves in a situation where platforms start artificially splitting, segmenting single tickets in order to circumvent passenger rights.
And also we require minimum connection times that have to be included in those single ticket concepts to make sure that passengers do have time to change the train and get their connection. I will now stop my intro. I will listen to your questions.
I'm just mindful of time, but I would just like to stress that we believe this is an important step to further enhance the availability of rail and multimodal transport connections for passengers traveling across the European Union. You know that later this year we are planning to come with the sustainable tourism strategy where we believe this passenger package is an important element of enhancing tourism activities in the EU. We are working closely with the Council. Irish presidency has a very ambitious timeline to reach general approach by the end of the year. And of course we look forward to working with this committee.
We are open to your questions. There will be an extensive, much more technical briefing by my colleagues on the three proposals on the 9th of September. We'll share very detailed slides with you after this meeting. And as always we are ready to answer your questions. And we look forward to also swift work of this committee on this package of proposals.
Thank you.
Thank you very much Magda, dear Mrs. Kopczyńska. As you well said, we're waiting for the strategic for tourism by the Commissioner Mr. Tzitzikostas. Now I proceed. I will give the floor to the coordinators or them who replace the coordinators for three minutes first. And we start with Mr. Jonski from EPP.
Dariusz, you have the floor.
Dariusz Joński
I will speak Polish. Szanowna pani przewodnicząca, szanowna pani dyrektor. Czasami zastanawiamy się po co właściwie jest Unia Europejska i moim zdaniem odpowiedź jest dość prosta. Otóż po to, żeby ułatwiać życie ludziom mieszkającym we wszystkich krajach Unii Europejskiej, we wszystkich 27 krajach. I właśnie dlatego uważam, że przedstawiony przez Komisję Europejską pakiet dotyczący pasażerów jest tak ważny.
Thank you.
Dariusz Joński
Bo wyobraźmy sobie przez chwilę takiego zwykłego pasażera, który chce pojechać na przykład z mojego miasta do Barcelony czy z Warszawy do Madrytu czy z Brukseli do Pragi. Dlaczego ma się w ogóle zastanawiać ilu przewoźników obsługuje tę linię? Dlaczego ma kupować kilka biletów na kilku platformach?
I dlaczego, kiedy jeden pociąg dzisiaj się spóźni, ma się martwić, czy straci kolejny bilet i kto tak na dobrą sprawę w innym kraju mu w tej sprawie pomoże? I to nie powinien być absolutnie jego problem. Pasażer chce po prostu dotrzeć z punktu A do punktu B i dlatego propozycja jedna podróż, jedna rezerwacja, jeden bilet trafia w sedno oczekiwań obywateli Unii Europejskiej i prawa pasażerów chronione od początku do samego końca podróży. I to powinien nasz być wspólny cel. I właśnie w takich sprawach Europa pokazuje swoją prawdziwą siłę.
Nie wtedy, kiedy tworzy kolejne skomplikowane procedury, ale właśnie wtedy, kiedy obywatel może powiedzieć: tak, dzięki Europie moje życie staje się prostsze. I dla mnie jako Polaka jest to szczególnie ważne i istotne. W Polsce rozpoczęliśmy budowę kolei dużych prędkości, chcemy połączyć wschodnią część Europy z zachodnią, ale też musimy sobie jasno powiedzieć, że nie wystarczy budować tylko i wyłącznie szybkich pociągów, nie wystarczy budować nowych torów i nie wystarczy budować nowych tuneli. Musimy również sprawić, aby Europa po prostu była łatwa do przemierzenia, bo jaki sens ma pociąg, który jedzie 250 czy 300 kilometrów na godzinę, jeśli pasażer musi się przesiąść i szukać przez pół godziny albo przez godzinę, gdzie ma kupić bilet na kolejny odcinek swojej podróży?
Więc Europa przyszłości musi być też połączona nie tylko torami, musi być połączona także w taki sposób, żeby pasażer to odczuł. Cieszę się, że jako kontrsprawozdawca będę pracował nad tym raportem, bo jest oczekiwany. I oczywiście chcę bardzo mocno podkreślić, musimy również słuchać przewoźników, ale musimy zapewnić uczciwą konkurencję i stworzyć rozwiązania, które będą możliwe do wdrożenia. Ale w tej całej dyskusji, debacie i pracy nad tym raportem absolutnie w centrum tej dyskusji musi pozostać pasażer. Nie system, nie platforma, tylko po prostu pasażer.
Jeśli naprawdę chcemy przekonać Europejczyków do kolei, to musimy dać im system, któremu po prostu mogą zaufać, system prosty, przejrzysty i system prawdziwie europejski. I na koniec jedno pytanie do pani dyrektor. One question at the end: what will passengers actually gain? What measurable improvement for passengers does the Commission expect in terms of ticket prices, number of available connections and booking time and cross-border journey? Thank you very much.
Elissavet Vozemberg-Vrionidi
Thank you very much. Mr Danielsson, three minutes, I repeat, not for you, for everyone.
Johan Danielsson
Not five, huh? No.
Thank you, Chair. Thank you to the Commission also for presenting the proposal and also for putting the proposal on the table, because from our group we very much welcome the ambition of the package, because if we are serious to shifting more passenger to rail, we need to make traveling by train across Europe as easy as booking a flight. Today we have a situation where passengers need to understand the contractual relations between different undertakings, between platforms and so on to know their rights, and this is frankly not reasonable. I think for us it's important that throughout this process we keep the passenger at the center of the legislation. If a connection is missed on a journey with different operators, there needs to be a clear responsibility.
There needs to be a clear right for the passenger to reach the end destination and there needs to be a clear compensation for undue delays. So with this said, I had three questions to the Commission. The first one is concerning the fact, of course, the package rightly address, as you said in your intervention as well, the market powers of incumbent rail operators. You also try to put in safeguards for large digital platforms through the multimodal booking regulation. But if you could perhaps develop a little bit whether or not what what are the risks?
Are the safeguards sufficient, or do we run the risk that we, so to say, create new bottlenecks where we have these large platforms as the new gatekeepers for mobility in Europe, and what needs to be done to avoid this? Secondly, if our goal is seamless door-to-door travel, how will the proposal interact with local and urban transport, and what could the Commission do to support the integration of these services? And then perhaps the third question, because I think in general you get positive support from many political groups in this house when you presented the proposal, but there is of course also some concern raised by different stakeholders. So in your perspective, what is the three pillars in this combined proposal that cannot be changed, that need to be maintained throughout the legislative process if this will, if this should be benefiting the passenger as intended by the Commission? Thank you.
Thank you very much. For ECR, Mr. Gambino.
Alberico Gambino
I speak Italian. Presidente, colleghe, colleghi, condividiamo l'obiettivo di rendere più semplice l'acquisto dei biglietti ferroviari in Europa e di rafforzare la tutela dei passeggeri.
Ma dobbiamo intervenire con precisione e proporzionalità. Secondo l'Eurobarometro 2025, quasi tre passeggeri su quattro trovano già agevole prenotare viaggi, così come è stato detto, con più operatori. La prima criticità è che il pacchetto riguarda soltanto il settore ferroviario. Se vogliamo promuovere realmente la multimodalità, gli obblighi devono applicarsi a tutti i modi di trasporto a lunga percorrenza. Preoccupano inoltre gli obblighi di condividere i dati, la vendita dei prodotti dei concorrenti attraverso piattaforme terze e il regime di responsabilità per i viaggi multi-operatore.
Queste misure rischiano di aumentare i costi di distribuzione e di sottrarre risorse agli investimenti nei treni, le reti e nella qualità dei servizi, in contrasto con l'impegno europeo di ridurre gli oneri regolatori. Il pacchetto non risolve invece un problema a mio avviso essenziale: l'interoperabilità tecnica. Esistono già biglietti integrati che gli operatori non riescono a riconoscere reciprocamente a bordo.
Per realizzare un vero biglietto unico europeo servono innanzitutto standard comuni e sistemi capaci di comunicare tra loro, non soltanto nuovi obblighi commerciali. Anche sulla responsabilità occorre un principio chiaro. Risponde chi costruisce e vende il viaggio. Se una piattaforma aggrega unilateralmente più biglietti senza accordi con gli operatori, non può trasferire alle imprese ferroviarie la responsabilità per coincidenze con queste che non hanno offerto né concordato. Il passeggero deve sapere fin dall'acquisto chi è il responsabile.
Possiamo rafforzare il principio della continuazione del viaggio garantendo al passeggero di raggiungere la destinazione in caso di collegamenti persi senza introdurre compensazioni sproporzionate. Serve dunque un quadro più equilibrato. Semplice per i passeggeri, interoperabile e capace di tutelare gli investimenti necessari a migliorare ovviamente il trasporto ferroviario europeo. Grazie.
Thank you, Mr. Gabino. Mrs. Martinez for Renew.
Oihane Agirregoitia Martínez
Thanks, Chair. I'm speaking on behalf of Jan-Christoph Oetjen, reading some notes. Dear colleagues, unfortunately I cannot join today as I am currently campaigning in my constituency. Please accept my apologies for not being with you in person.
First of all, I see the passenger package as exactly that, a package. The three files are closely interconnected and should not be considered in isolation from one another. If we want to deliver genuine and effective protection for passengers, we need to bring the legislative process on all three files to a successful conclusion. I am therefore very pleased that, as a first important step, the three rapporteurs have managed to agree on a common timeline in the European Parliament. This is essential if we want to preserve the coherence of the package.
For me personally, this package is also about an idea that I have been pursuing since the beginning of my first term in the European Parliament: making multimodal travel in Europe truly simple. My vision has always been straightforward: imagine being able to book one journey from your doorstep to your hotel, combining a taxi or ride-hailing service, a bus, a train, and a flight, all with one ticket. As passengers, we should not have to think in terms of operators, transport modes, or national borders. We should simply be able to think about getting from A to B. I have consistently tried to keep this idea alive and push it forward over the years.
What we have before us today is certainly less ambitious than what was originally envisioned. Nevertheless, I am genuinely pleased that we now have a proposal on the table and that it tackles one of the most difficult pieces of the puzzle: cross-border rail travel. As the rapporteur for the file on the protection of passengers travelling with a single ticket, my objective is therefore clear: we need real passenger protections without loopholes or hidden backdoors. For passengers, one journey with several transport operators across borders should mean one ticket and one clear set of rights. They should not have to understand contractual arrangements between different operators or figure out who is responsible when something goes wrong.
If a connection is sold as one journey, passengers must be able to rely on effective protection throughout that whole journey. In the end, passengers will not judge us by how difficult our negotiations were or how we divided the work between three legislative files. They will judge us by whether we reach an agreement that actually works for them. I therefore look forward to working closely with Kai, Daniel and all shadow rapporteurs to ensure that in the end we deliver an ambitious and coherent passengers package.
Thank you very much. And now, sorry in Spanish, some words as shadow on multimodal booking file in this seconds. Simplemente con un ejemplo muy sencillo, si compras un viaje que incluye dos trenes de compañías diferentes y el primero llega tarde y pierdes el segundo, tiene que saber esa persona quién va a responder, que va a tener una alternativa, que va a llegar a su destino y que los derechos están protegidos y no debería importar cuántas compañías intervengan ni dónde hayas comprado el billete. Y por lo tanto, comprar unos billetes debería de ser tan fácil como poder elegir en unos segundos cuál es la más barata, cuál es la más rápida o cuál es la que tiene el menor impacto ambiental. Y una vez elegido el viaje, saber que todos tus derechos están protegidos desde el origen hasta el destino.
Y en eso vamos a trabajar en este file. Eskerrik asko, muchísimas gracias.
Thank you very much, Mrs. Martínez. Mr. Teketov.
Kai Tegethoff
Yes, thank you, Ms. Kupczyńska, for your presentation and especially also to DG MOVE for bringing forward this package. Those three proposals are timely, ambitious and respond to very concrete questions that passengers have been asking for years. Those are, for example, can I find the train? Can I compare different options? Can I book a journey easily?
And this package directly answers just those questions. As rapporteur for the rail ticketing regulation, I genuinely believe that this whole package only makes sense as a package. And on this, I have to second the thoughts of Jan-Christoph. If we make it easier to sell and combine tickets, but passengers do not have clear rights when something goes wrong, we will miss the point. And if we strengthen passenger rights, but passengers still cannot easily find, compare, or book cross-border rail journeys, we will also miss the point.
And if something goes wrong, will I be protected?
So passengers should be able to find the journeys, book on whatever platform they choose, and then also know that they will be protected for the whole trip. This is why I very much welcome the ambition of the package. It is about making European rail easier, clearer, and more reliable for passengers in real life on the ground. I do have three questions about the rail ticketing regulation. First, some concerns that we hear from some operators.
They say, for example, that voluntary initiatives and technical standards are already improving ticketing and that the regulation would not really be needed.
But I see a different picture. I see that passengers still cannot always see and book the full rail offer. So it would be interesting to hear your perspective on what concrete gap do you as Commission believe cannot be solved without clear binding EU rules. Second, another concern that we hear is that this proposal would interfere with commercial freedom. Again, I have a different perspective.
Many platforms concerned are dominant national ticketing channels linked to historic incumbents. Where does the Commission draw the line between the legitimate commercial freedom and using a dominant platform to limit access for competitors and passengers? Because this understanding we need to clearly have. And finally, the hosting obligation. According to the proposal, the hosting obligation can be fulfilled by just displaying train tickets.
My question is very simple. Is that enough? Because if passengers only see that another ticket exists on another platform but cannot easily access it, cannot book it, do you really think that solves the problem and improves the situation?
Thank you, and I'm very much looking forward to starting the actual work on it. Thank you.
Arash Saeidi
Merci, Madame la Présidente. Je m'excuse par avance auprès de la Commission si jamais je ne pouvais pas rester jusqu'à la réponse, j'ai en même temps une autre commission avec des votes et des prises de parole, donc je vous prie de m'en excuser par avance. Je me réjouis moi aussi de travailler à nouveau sur ces textes dans la foulée du droit des passagers aériens et effectivement, il est important qu'on crée des droits et qu'on les garantisse pour les passagers et qu'on facilite le parcours des passagers, surtout quand il s'agit du rail puisque c'est le moyen de parcourir des distances de la manière la plus écologique qui soit. Et donc tout ce qui va dans le sens de favoriser le rail, nous le soutiendrons et tout ce qui facilitera à nos concitoyens le fait de pouvoir prendre des trains, nous le soutiendrons.
Je vais plutôt aller vers les deux points qui moi m'inquiètent, puisqu'on aura le temps de travailler sur le texte et à la fin de se féliciter. Moi j'ai d'abord une inquiétude, c'est que j'aimerais, et j'aimerais que la Commission accompagne les opérateurs dans ce sens. Moi je ne veux pas opposer les opérateurs aux passagers et je ne veux pas non plus opposer les opérateurs entre eux. Et je préférerais qu'ils coopèrent entre eux. On l'a vu depuis tout à l'heure, mes collègues parlent du fait que quand on doit changer de pays ou quand on doit changer d'opérateur, c'est compliqué.
Moi je préférerais qu'ils coopèrent entre eux plutôt que de dépenser des millions à aller essayer de conquérir les marchés les uns des autres. Tous les opérateurs européens manquent d'argent et manquent d'investissement. Le rail manque d'argent. Et moi je considère que chaque opérateur devrait plutôt s'affairer à proposer un service optimal chez lui, là où il est l'opérateur historique, plutôt que d'aller essayer de taper dans les lignes rentables de ses... ce qui devrait être ses partenaires européens. Et dans le même sens, toujours parce que je pense que le rail manque d'investissement et d'argent, moi je vous appelle à vous méfier de ce que je pense être une fausse bonne idée.
Moi plutôt que de voir des nouveaux opérateurs entrer sur le marché et forcément ponctionner un pourcentage, une commission sur les billets.
Ce nouvel opérateur, qu'il prenne 8 %, 10 %, 12 %, soit ça va être 12 % qui vont augmenter le prix du billet, soit ça va être 12 % qui vont taper dans les caisses des opérateurs et qu'ils ne pourront pas investir dans l'amélioration du réseau. Je préférerais qu'on travaille main dans la main avec les opérateurs, avec nous, avec la pression de la Commission, pour qu'un système commun soit mis en place par les opérateurs et que l'argent, vous l'aurez compris, ne sorte pas du système et de l'investissement dans le rail. Je n'ai rien contre les opérateurs internet, mais je doute que les bénéfices qu'ils auront ponctionnés sur le prix des billets retournent dans le rail et construisent des nouvelles lignes. C'est du béné... ce sont des sommes d'argent qui vont disparaître du système alors que le rail manque déjà cruellement d'investissement. Je vous remercie.
Volker Schnurrbusch
Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair, and thanks to DG MOVE for this interesting information and presentation. Let me say that the ESN group strongly supports strengthening passenger rights and ensuring clear, predictable, and transparent legal requirements.
In our view, it is vital that consumers have a more easily understandable set of rules on how to enforce their rights towards transport companies, no matter which operator they use, especially in cross-border journeys. Generally, as you might know, we are critical of the growing scope, level of detail, and regulatory burden of EU rules. Passenger protection also should be proportionate and practical without creating unnecessary administrative burdens or excessively restricting the commercial freedom and competitiveness of transport operators. But we listened very closely to your remarks and we welcome the idea that offers are presented in a neutral order in your proposal. Also, the inclusion of competitors in markets which are dominated by public service operators is very welcome.
And if it's indeed possible to clear the question of liability in case of a disruption, I think this is a crucial point, then this proposal could be a very big success. And we are very much looking forward to the technical briefing and also the consultations which we will engage in in a constructive manner. So, thanks very much and we are, for once, very optimistic that this will be a big success for the passengers. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Schnurbusch. Now I will give the floor to Mrs. Kopczyńska for five minutes please to reply and answer the questions and then we continue with other colleagues. Thank you very much.
Magda Kopczyńska
Madam Chair, you know I can't answer those questions in five minutes, so you're putting me in an impossible situation. But, but first and foremost, I really, I again would like to express my thanks because what I have heard in all the questions is positive understanding of why this package is on the table. And I think this is already a big, a big step in the right direction. I will try to go through, through all the political groups, starting by EPP. I hope I'm excused for answering in English and not in Polish, even though I know the importance of connecting Łódź to the rest of, of Europe.
But you have, you have asked one question at the end in terms of what, what it is that we see that will be improved with that package.
And I think this this answer also addresses some of the other comments that I heard. I know there is this this consideration whether whether we have enough competition, whether whether more competition will be good, whether the situation of incumbent rail operators will be improved, will get worse, what will happen with ticket prices at the end of this proposal, because someone can say that we are de facto trying to create some additional requirements for the operators when we make want to make sure that they are more transparent, more information, maybe potentially some of them will will need to compete with others because information on the connections will be there. But I think what I would like to stress is what so many of you have said already. Our focus for this package is the passenger, is the consumer. We want to make sure that they have better access to more tickets, they have better access to information about the tickets, and that they know for sure that their rights are protected when they travel by rail, if they travel with a single ticket.
And I think for us this this will be a bit the the checkpoint whether the regulation is going in the right way. And I very much hope that in all the work that this committee will be doing on that package, you will have exactly the same objective in mind: to make sure that we increase the offer for the consumers. And I am absolutely convinced that there are still many Europeans who will be willing to take a train journey.
So I'm completely not worried that at some point we'll have too many connections and too few passengers. We want to use this this package is an excuse and another measure and another means to push for better rail connectivity in the European Union, including with all the work we do we do on on infrastructure development. And I think here one one important comment that will also then link me to the question asked by by Mr. Danielsson. High-speed rail action plan is critically important, but the point about this package is that we look beyond only high speed. If we want connectivity in the EU, we also need to make sure that regional local trains also work.
So when we look at the train journey, we look not only at the high-speed big cross-border trains, but also at the regional trains. We do however exclude urban trans urban rail from from the from the scope simply because we believe that urban rail functions slightly differently, tickets are bought differently. This is also this is often used for the sake of daily commuting.
So that's why we make a clear, a clear difference between those two. When it comes to, to, to question for platforms, I think what we, if I can try to answer it in brief, we try to, on the one hand, this proposal is, should not be looked at in dissociation from the Digital Services Act, Digital Market Act. So we try to build on what is the already including enforcement. We want to make sure that platforms have obligations, but also we want to make sure that platforms cannot avoid being a useful tool for passengers when it comes to access to information on ticketing. So that's why this, this, that's exactly the reason why we actually in the end decided for two separate proposals, one for rail ticketing and one for the multimodal platforms, because we believe multimodal platforms need to be looked at in a slightly wider way.
But everything that concerns enforcement, taking care of the rights of those who deal with those platforms is to be taken care by Member States in the setup of enforcement of EU regulation that already exists.
And again, the front rule when it comes to fair display and non-discriminatory access to information is one of the principles that we'll be very much insisting that are put in place when it comes to platforms. Mr. Danielsson, I will not answer to your third question because you ask about the three points that are absolutely indispensable. I'm sure you will not be surprised when I tell you that all elements in those three proposals are indispensable, and I leave it at that. There was a set of questions from Mr. Gambino where you talked about data sharing and the importance of technical interoperability. I agree with you, but I also slightly disagree because I think nowadays technical interoperability can be read very widely, and it's really not necessarily about the technical/technological interoperability, but what platforms can do and what they should do and how information is shared.
We already have quite a few sets of rules which concern which information has to be made available, also in the context of multimodal travel information, for example, looking back at the ITS Directive where we already put some solutions in place.
You did refer to agreement between operators and you said that you believe they are not enough and we fully, fully agree. That is why we came with the package because, and I'm here also answering I think some of the questions that come later, that simply relying on voluntary agreements hasn't done the trick so far. It is my simplest answer to that question. If the agreements worked, if they covered all operators, we wouldn't need to legislate. Those agreements don't work, hence the proposal.
You referred to, you said that maybe we should have a single European ticket. I think you also mentioned the need to reduce administrative burden. We actually looked at it and simply trying to create an additional layer of one European system or one European ticket would probably create double layer of everything, which would not do the trick. That's why what we focused on is to look at what is there already, the platforms that exist, put additional requirements for them on rail operators, put additional requirements for them and combine all that with complete protection for passenger rights. Important point for passenger rights, there was also your question where passengers will appeal.
Well, they will use the well-established system of appeal and national enforcement bodies that already exist for passenger rights across other modes. Just just just to finish finish, there were there were questions asked about about liability, including by Ms. Martinez. Liability in our proposal will be with the operator whose connection was the reason for disruption. That's the only way to look at it in our in our belief, because otherwise it's it's it's getting a bit muddy. And I do agree what is very important, what will be very important when you and the Council agree on that package, is information to consumers.
We will need to explain what they have, what they will have more. But we have had very good practice at explaining passenger rights, and you know very well that this is one of those European solutions that are very well enshrined, if I can say so, in the souls of of Europeans. Few questions from from Mr. Terheş, and again thanks for your for your overall support to the proposal. As I said, voluntary initiatives are there, but they don't seem they don't seem to work.
When it comes to commercial freedom, we don't think we go too far. We have actually looked very carefully in terms of what it is that we ask business entities to do. For example, you know, we don't talk at all about as sensitive a question as pricing. We want to make sure that from the consumer perspective information, access to information, access to possibility to buy tickets is all there, again with consumer in the center. And I think there was the final question concerning us keeping an eye on operators.
I wanted to comment on that because I don't fully agree with the line that they should cooperate and not compete. As per the report on the situation on European rail market that we published, I think, November last year, competition is clearly a good thing. Competition is what increases the offer, competition is what can bring prices down, but it's important that this competition is done in a way that everybody who wants to compete has a fair chance to compete. And this is exactly what is in the proposal, especially when I look at the rail ticketing part. I stop here.
Thank you very much, Mrs. Kopinska, very useful all the answers.
So, we continue the second round of the speakers. We will give two minutes each, please. And we start with Llarás Jiménez from EPP. Thank you.
Borja Giménez Larraz
Thank you, Chair. First, I'm gonna talk on behalf of Sophia Kiessner, who is the EPP shadow rapporteur on the multimodal booking file. We need to make use of multimodal booking, but there are still several barriers that make this difficult. Removing these barriers will help strengthen the single market for transport. However, I have some questions about the proposal.
Why has the Commission decided to ban sponsored results from the default display, given that this is already addressed under the EU consumer protection framework? Second, why are B2B providers brought within the scope of the regulation regardless of their size, while B2C providers are subject to specific thresholds? And third, regarding the mandatory data sharing, why has the Commission chosen a general mandatory framework rather than the parties involved to agree on data sharing?
And how will commercially sensitive information be properly protected? So that's all from Sophia's side. And now I am the shadow rapporteur for the protection of rail passengers. And first, I want to say that the proposal, it is clearly an important step towards ensuring that passengers who buy a single ticket for a journey involving several railway companies are properly protected. So we welcome this.
However, I have two concerns that I want to raise. First, the proposed 12 hours threshold under which compensation would be calculated only for specific leg of the journey affected, rather than for the passenger's entire trip. Why did the Commission choose 12 hours as the threshold? And the second question is the anti-segmentation clause. It requires platforms to include all possible combinations in a single ticket.
And this is great. We understand the objective, but we think that it needs to be clearer. There are connections that are not feasible. Yes, but I'm talking also on behalf of Sophia, very quick. For example, stepping down from one train and catching another train.
Okay, okay, sorry, sorry. So how does the Commission see this?
I thought that it was two minutes for each member. Yes, but I'm talking also...
Elissavet Vozemberg-Vrionidi
You have already two minutes. Thank you very much. And Mrs. Walters from S&D, please.
Lara Wolters
Thank you, Chair. Every five years or so, the EU, I'm here, the EU does something big and bold for consumers, and hopefully this passenger package will be a big moment like that. I recall the package on roaming charges, the common charger, and in all of those there was resistance, there were issues, but at the end of the day we got to a big moment and we didn't look back. And I think that here our goal is a shared one. I think everyone here says it: smoother travel, better travel, cheaper travel on trains, more convenient travel.
And I'm grateful for for this package hopefully um delivering on that. Um, I do have a a question then, because I think for passengers the potential benefits are clear, for the environment they are clear. Um, but you speak in your impact assessment on economic benefits, and I'd like you to elaborate on those a little bit in light of Mr. Saïdi's question um as well. Um, you say competition will make prices go go down, but what of his remark on the risks of investments potentially reducing? So can you sketch a little bit what for you the ideal looks like in terms of distribution and say a little bit about economic benefits versus those potential risks?
Thank you.
Jana Nagyová
Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Thank you very much, Commission. And also I listened carefully the other colleagues, so um yeah, I I I see that the proposal in general is highly appreciated and also by the way from our side, because we do believe that um making passengers' life easier is absolutely necessary precondition um to get get people to the rail more. At the same time, so while looking from the passenger point of view, um I think the the proposal sounds very good, but at the same time we have to speak to the industry and to the operators obviously, because they will be obliged to at the end of the day to carry all this um modal shift and and this um obligations.
So I promised our national operator to ask following four questions. First was, how has the Commission specifically demonstrated the existence of market failure requiring market-wide ex-ante regulation given that the Regulatory Scrutiny Board found the supporting evidence insufficient? First question. Second, why do the obligations apply to the entire market when the international journeys account only for very small share of rail travel in many Member States, particularly when the Commission objective is to increase the share of cross-border journeys? Third, why the Commission promoting sale of so-called single tickets under which the carrier bears full liability for circumstances beyond its control, even though it cannot influence operation, infrastructure or the provision of adequate data exchange between various actors involved?
And fourth, why does the Commission proposal include hosting and sharing obligations that apply to railway undertakings while large independent platforms remain outside the scope of this obligation despite potentially exercising a comparable level of influence over distribution?
So I'd like to thank you in advance for answering, although I realize that some of the questions might already be answered. Thank you.
Elissavet Vozemberg-Vrionidi
Thank you very much. I should have given the floor to Mr. Danielsson as rapporteur, apologies. You have the floor, Mr. Danielsson. Thank you.
Johan Danielsson
Well, on behalf of David Allard as rapporteur, I apologize for not being here, so I will read his statement. We welcome the multimodal booking regulation as an important opportunity to shape the rules for Europe's increasingly digital travel and ticketing market. Choice and transparency must be at the heart of consumers' online journey from planning and comparing different transport options right through to booking. Digital tools and platforms that allow consumers to compare transport modes and competing transport providers can play an important role in supporting a more multimodal transport system. They can also help smaller and less well-known transport providers, including regional operators, gain greater visibility and reach consumers online.
I therefore believe that we need clear rules that ensure transparency for consumers, prevent platforms with significant market power from restricting competition, and recognize the competitive reality in which multimodal platforms operate alongside highly successful platforms focused on a single transport mode. Against this background, the Rapporteur has three questions. First, on accessibility, how will the Commission ensure that the accessibility of information provided by platforms is accurate, reliable, and sufficiently detailed to enable passengers to make meaningful choices? Secondly, on future-proofing the rules, how does the Commission intend to ensure that the regulation remains effective as consumers increasingly use search engines such as Google, AI assistants, and other emerging technologies to discover and compare transport options? Would the Commission see merit in further future-proofing the regulation so that its principle of transparency, fair competition, and genuine consumer choice continue to apply as the way consumers search for and book travel evolves?
And thirdly and finally, on multimodal versus intramodal platforms, would the Commission see a merit in distinguishing more clearly between multimodal platforms, which combine different modes of transport, and intramodal platforms, which aggregate competing providers within the same mode? Thank you for the floor.
Thank you very much. Mr. Tikitov.
Kai Tegethoff
Thank you. Yeah, on behalf of Lena Schilling, our shadow rapporteur, I want to ask two quick questions on the passenger right proposal. So, the shortest single journey from Vienna to Brussels lasts 12 hours and 7 minutes and involves three trains, so two changes. In the passenger right proposal, the Commission suggests that where a passenger has a single ticket for a scheduled journey of 12 hours or more, the passenger shall only be entitled to compensation in relation to delays where the delay occurred. Could you please explain how this impacts passenger rights and the whole logic behind it?
Since these proposals try to support international travel, 12 hours are not unusual. Why did the Commission decide for 12 hours, and do you agree that this could have negative effects on the compensation for passengers and weakens the existing provisions? Thank you.
Thank you, Chair. Thank you very much for this proposal. I'm over here.
Ana Vasconcelos
And for your presentation and I also very much welcome your comments on how important competition is to deliver these much expected results. Any of us can book a flight or a hotel on just one platform. Try booking a train from Brussels to Lisbon, you will have to navigate multiple websites, buy several tickets and if anything goes wrong, deal with a web of different and uncertain rules. Why hasn't the rail sector undergone a digital transformation as have other modes of transport? New operators struggle to reach consumers, ticketing remains concentrated in the hands of incumbent railway companies who control both rail services and the main online ticketing platforms.
They selectively share ticketing data, restrict access to competing platforms and refuse to sell competitors' tickets through their own channels. As a result, competition is weakened and consumers have fewer choices. This proposal is an important step forward. Rail ticketing remains one of the last major bottlenecks in completing the single market, the single European railway area.
My question is whether it is ambitious enough for new operators to compete not only on tracks but also online where passengers actually make their choices. First, the proposal relies heavily on national enforcement bodies and dispute settlement. What enforcement tools will these national authorities actually have to fight anti-competitive practices in the market? Second, five years from now, what outcomes would convince you, the Commission, that the regulation has worked? If passengers can see more operators online but still cannot buy a Lisbon-Madrid-Brussels journey under a single ticket with full passenger rights, would you consider that a success?
Rail is Europe's cleanest way to travel and still only accounts for around 5% of passenger transport. More competition, more comparable choices, and better prices will make this a real viable choice for Europeans. Thank you.
Thank you, Chair. I will switch to Croatian language. Poštovana direktorice, zahvaljujem na predstavljanju paketa za prava putnika. Glavni cilj paketa je pojednostavljenje prekograničnog putovanja željeznicom koji omogućuje da putnici kupuju jednu kartu i da njime putuju kroz različite države članice uz jasna prava.
Nikolina Brnjac
Svima nama je cilj da putovanje željeznicom bude što privlačnije, da bude što jednostavnije. Međutim, ova nova pravila ne smiju dovesti do viših cijena karata, niti do dominacije digitalnih platformi, kao što je to imamo slučaj u turizmu. I na to moramo posebno paziti. Zato bih voljela postaviti dva pitanja. Prvo, dakle, veliki prijevoznici su ozbiljne firme i u većini slučajeva izbjegavaju nerealna vremena za presađivanja.
A ako putnik putuje kroz, na primjer, tri države članice i mijenja tri vlaka, on mora znati kada će stići na sljedeći vlak i kako možete garantirati da neće biti oglašavanja bržih putovanja na temelju nerealno kratkih vremena presađivanja, s obzirom da će svi htjeti biti konkurentni. I drugo pitanje, očekuje li Komisija da će nova pravila utjecati na dostupnost ili na cijenu subvencioniranih karata koje nude nacionalni željeznički prijevoznici? Hvala.
Actually, Andreas Schieder wanted to be here, but he had to leave. So first of all, apologies for this, and he sent me his speaking notes.
Vivien Costanzo
So I will read first the speaking notes on behalf of Andreas Schieder, and then I have personal questions. So Andreas Schieder says, the passenger package takes important steps towards making rail a more attractive transport mode, in particular by making it easier for consumers to buy a rail journey in one place and by guaranteeing full passenger rights throughout their journey, regardless of whether they travel with different railway undertakings. It should give passengers greater confidence to choose rail. Passenger rights are fundamentally about protecting passengers when things go wrong and ensuring that the risks and costs of disruptions are not borne by the individual passenger alone. At the same time, we need to recognize that extending passenger protection and liabilities may have an impact on the costs of providing rail services and ultimately on ticket prices.
I think we all share the objective of keeping rail travel affordable. The best way to protect passengers from the costs and inconvenience of disruption is to reduce the disruption in the first place. Making rail an attractive alternative to other modes is therefore not only about providing strong rights when things go wrong, but also about delivering a reliable, high-quality service while recognizing that delays and cancellations can never be eliminated entirely. Beyond strengthening passenger rights, what is the Commission doing to tackle the wider structural challenges that contribute to delays and cancellations so that we can improve the reliability and attractiveness of rail while also keeping the costs of rail travel affordable?
That was the statement and the questions of Andreas Schieder. And just one remark from my side, because when we listen to all the people we're talking to today, we can see there is a big unity about what we want and what about the challenges we have. So my question is, how do you see the Council in this case?
Elissavet Vozemberg-Vrionidi
Thank you very much. And now last but not least, Mr. Calfons.
François Kalfon
Oui, dans tout le postulat de la Commission européenne, il y a l'idée que la concurrence, que les plateformes vont faire baisser les prix. Rien n'est moins sûr en réalité puisqu'on a un exemple dans le passé avec UK où la concurrence a été introduite et en catastrophe on a réintroduit un opérateur ferroviaire national à cause de ces effets-là. Mais quel est le constat aujourd'hui ? Un Barcelone-Londres, ça va jusqu'à 400 euros en train versus 15 euros en avion. Barcelone-Milan en train, aucun opérateur ferroviaire ne propose ce trajet.
Alors cette question du gap entre le prix du ferroviaire et le prix de l'aérien au regard du changement climatique qui est là, elle est tout à fait considérable, tout à fait clé. Lorsque le train n'est pas trop cher, réserver son billet est aussi un casse-tête. Sur plus d'un trajet international, ça a été dit par mes collègues, international sur deux, l'avion est moins cher, nettement moins cher, je viens d'en donner l'exemple. 40 % des passagers prendraient davantage le train si réserver son billet n'était pas aussi compliqué, notamment dans les nouvelles générations qui ont conscience de cet enjeu climatique. Nous devons casser cette espèce de tendance qui pollue et qui privilégie le train et qui rend le train compliqué.
Les propositions de la Commission vont bien sûr faciliter la réservation, mais sur les prix il faudra faire bien plus. Comment éviter la flambée des commissions négociées par les plateformes ? Ça a été dit X fois, moi je donne l'exemple du tourisme, Booking c'est jusqu'à 25 % de commission en égorgeant littéralement les hôteliers. Donc comment on va faire en sorte que les opérateurs historiques ferroviaires qui ont un problème de capacité d'investissement ne soient pas pris à la gorge par ces plateformes qui finalement sont les véritables patrons du tourisme et peuvent demain être les véritables patrons du transport ferroviaire ?
Enfin bien sûr moi je cite le cas de mon pays mais il faudrait aussi parce qu'il y a d'autres textes sur les spectacles encadrer la tarification dynamique des opérateurs ferroviaires. Moi j'ai discuté avec des opérateurs en France. Vous vous rendez compte que sur un Paris-Nice par exemple ou un Paris-Cannes vous pouvez avoir des billets de train dans un rapport de 1 à 8. Est-ce que c'est normal pour le consommateur et avec une gestion même d'un point de vue de la Commission européenne une gestion de ces tarifs qui relève plus de la poudre de perlimpinpin et d'une logique de profit pur et en tout cas d'aucune clarté pour le consommateur. Je vous donne un dernier exemple.
Oui il me reste 30 secondes. Non je les ai dépassées mais quand même l'exemple c'est que la SNCF fait des politiques de petits prix soi-disant et donc ils ouvrent des billets 6 mois à l'avance et après certaines enquêtes d'associations de consommateurs on s'aperçoit que sur un train de 400 places il y a juste 30 places qui sont offertes à petit prix. Donc dans nos enjeux de faire baisser les prix il y a aussi la transparence sur ces plateformes mais aussi sur la pratique des opérateurs ferroviaires. Merci.
Thank you very much. Now, Madam Director, you have the floor, no stress, we have time. Thank you.
Magda Kopczyńska
Thank you, and thank you for this interesting diversity of questions, and I can already imagine that the two-hour technical briefing that will happen on the 9th will be far too short. So I will ask my colleagues, who all of them, all the heads of unit are here in the room, I will ask all of them to book extra time because I can see keen interest on your side for this important package. I will try to go through all questions. If I've missed one or two, please forgive me for that, either I'll pick it up later or colleagues will answer that on the 9th of September. So, starting with EPP, there were a few very specific questions, one concerning sponsoring, the sponsored results to be banned as default display.
First of all, the regulation does not prohibit such paid or sponsored results, but indeed we don't want them to be the default choice.
Consumers will always have a possibility to click and go for that option. But what we also want to achieve here, and and and quite a few of you referred to that, if we want to have proper or the right choice or the possibility to really understand what is on offer, then this offer has to be presented in a way that is objective and goes by what's best for the consumer and not what is decided by the by the platform. In addition, since you you referred to the to the consumer law, there is there is a bit of a safety net approach there, but we don't believe that what we propose here, where we make sure that the sponsored results cannot be the default option, goes against the established practice in the in the consumer law, in the commercial commercial practices directive. And again, I think it's it's very important in the context of ticketing in particular because we are dealing here with a market that so far, and here I'm I'm also responding to some of your questions concerning the the market failure, we are dealing with a market that doesn't function. We are dealing with a market where either when it comes to multimodal platforms, some of the operators do not have a possibility to have their tickets presented there.
Some of the platforms don't get the tickets that they would like to to present or the information available from the operators.
In some cases, you get only partial information and as a consumer you can really end up being at a loss. So this question of making sure that whatever is displayed is presented in a fair and transparent and consumer-oriented way for us is one of the basic principles in that proposal. There was a question concerning the difference between the B2B platforms and B2C. Indeed, what we went for is to have all the B2B providers being covered by the proposal. Why?
Because we believe it is really important that we avoid the situation when travel agents being encouraged by some of the platforms to use maybe specific or to present specific information provided by that platform and de facto they may end up functioning as travel agents of specific platforms.
So we want to make sure that all B2B all B2B platforms are covered so that all transport operators have to be present on all business-to-business MDMS platforms. And we really believe this is an important element also going back to earlier question in the first round in terms of creating a market that really starts functioning. There was a question about data sharing. We believe that what we have proposed in that proposal really is not going very far. A lot the information that we have for data sharing talks about aggregated data and we want to make sure that we don't go too far in terms of information and data obligations that are there for for for platforms and for operators.
There was a very important question concerning the 12-hour threshold. I just want to to recall to all of us that we really have to have clarity what it is that we try to do in this proposal. First of all, already today, if you have a so-called through-ticket, so ticket that and I'm talking about rail in particular now, if you buy a ticket with one rail operator, even if it covers many connections, your full passenger rights are covered.
We introduced this concept of a single ticket, and with a single ticket, again, it can be different operators, different train connections, but if you have a single ticket, your rights are covered. So what we are talking here with the threshold is a situation when you don't have a single ticket bought, and there we introduced this limit of 12 hours because we believe for the daytime travel, this is the usual time for train connection. Please remember for the when a night train is part of the journey, the 12-hour limitation does not kick in. There were a few questions in general also coming from S&D referring to the economic benefits and to again to the market failure. We really believe and we try to be as precise as possible in the impact assessment, and if you read the final impact assessment, I think we are able to demonstrate it quite clearly that we believe the ones who will gain apart from consumers will be in particular train operators, not only the independent ones, but also the incumbent ones, because they will have a gradually an increased market, an increased interest of consumers.
As I said in the first round, we still believe there is a huge untapped potential when it comes to train travels in Europe. So this proposal is to make sure that whatever whatever investment are happening in rail, and there was also a question in terms of what it is that we are doing to improve the functioning of rail. And I know that this committee is very well aware of all the action starting from rail capacity proposal to investments under Connecting Europe Facility, to investments in the in the innovation of in the rail sector through the Europe Rail Joint Undertaking. There are there are proposals that we are that we are working on that will still come in the next couple of months, looking at the at the European Rail Agency renewed mandate and also train drivers. So we we we do not stop only with with this package when it comes to making sure that the offer and functioning of European rail is being improved.
I referred to high-speed rail action plan already earlier.
We are now working on a financing strategy that should accompany this high-speed rail action plan, because I'm sure you all remember very well the numbers that came with the action plan, 360 or 540 billion euro, depending on the speed of high-speed. So I think we need to, I think you trust us when we say that rail is looked at from different angles, the passenger dimension, the consumer dimension with this package, infrastructure dimension, improvement in infrastructure, both with high-speed rail and Connecting Europe Facility, and again, big appreciation and thanks for support of this committee when it comes to discussions on the next MFF and the future shape and amounts under Connecting Europe Facility, but also some developments that will improve the functioning of market, of the operators and also the overall connectivity across borders. There was, I think, I'm just looking at the questions, there were questions concerning, again, coming from Sidaniusson, concerning accessibility, just to stress that this is extremely important, that it is done properly, that all the information when it comes to accessibility of trains is there.
And I think that we what we already put in place when it comes to MDMS platforms, we already and the ITS directive require clearly that data holders have to digitalize information on accessibility and they have to be made available via a so-called national access point. So we are talking here about information that is already available. We'll need to make sure that it's properly connected and available to consumers because when we look at consumers, we look at all consumers and not including the ones who have whichever difficulties when it comes to accessibility. Future-proofing, I think I think we talked a little bit about it in the in the previous in the previous round. It is the question of the on the one hand number of tickets sold, which is in a way an easier KPI, but we will also be looking very carefully at the number of agreements signed between rail operators and platforms.
Because this will be a good indication to show that what we try to achieve with this with this package to make sure that platforms, both multimodal platforms but also the the big platforms, ticketing platforms that are run by incumbent operators, that that they are not closed to others who want to sell their tickets.
And again, we have pretty clear, transparent rules here in terms of how those agreements, how quickly they have to be signed, and also information about those agreements has to be made available. So that will be a very clear indication that the regulation is, is delivering. I talked, I talked already about the 12 hours. There was a question, was, I think, coming from, from Renew, if I'm not mistaken, whether from the perspective of new operators, this proposal is ambitious enough. Well, I hope it is.
I hope what we will see at the end of the legislative process, when this package is agreed and enters into force, is that new rail operators will not be blocked from making their services available, visible, and easy to buy by passengers. I think we, we have left it a bit...
We trust the market that when the market is given the right push and this is what this regulations what these regulations are aimed to do that the market will start functioning in such a way that any operators offering competing services will have the same rights when it comes to access to consumers. And that's why again what I said in my first intervention we differentiated between MDMS and rail sector even though ultimately we want to make sure that all all possibilities to travel by train are properly functioning either on the multimodal or on rail only platforms. There was I think this question between multimodal and and intramodal but on that we've we've been quite clear we multimodal is covered by default and we also introduce this requirement that even if there is a single mode platform which sells tickets by two different operators they are already covered by the regulation and I think it's an important element to make sure that that we we try not to have loopholes that will allow anybody to be out.
There was an important... there was a question about national enforcement bodies and what instruments and what possibilities will there be when it comes to enforcement in particular. I think it was not only about passengers, but again, as I said, when it comes to the already existing enforcement mechanism, especially under Digital Services Act, Digital Market Act, we will work on these. There will be a need to create mechanisms where also operators have a right to appeal and to make sure that their rights under this regulation are protected. When it comes to passenger rights, as I said earlier, I think the system, the framework we have in place for passenger rights is sufficiently well established and well functioning that I'm not that worried. But again, recent discussions on the enforcement of passenger rights proposal showed that there are still things that can be further improved.
But I hope what we put here for rail passenger rights simply builds on the existing mechanism. And again, please let me assure you that once that package is finally agreed, we will make sure that there will be proper information campaign for all current and future passengers so that they really know what it is that they are entitled to under the new regulatory framework.
There was a question, I think, coming, referring to the point on transfer times and whether, how to make sure that those who offer the fastest connection do not win if they simply look for too short transfer times, which may lead passengers to actually miss connections. I like to think that the best offer is not the one that is the shortest, but is the one that gets you to your point of destination. And that's why we did include in the regulation requirement for minimum transfer times that has to be followed when it comes to offering many tickets to passengers to simply account for the need to change those times. And I think I already talked about, about in general that this package is only part of many actions that we continue to undertake to improve how rail functions in the EU. Just the very, very final, final question on the position in the Council.
As I said, the Irish presidency is extremely ambitious. They want to achieve general approach by the end of the year. Transport Council is on the 30th of November, so that even shorter time unless we do it with the other Council formations. But we really see a lot of commitment, a lot of understanding and a lot of support in the Council for that package.
As always, it's the end result of the Council and the Parliament joint work that brings the best possible result. Thank you.
Elissavet Vozemberg-Vrionidi
Thank you very much, Mrs. Kopczynska, for the presentation of this whole package and for the very important information you've give you've been given us. And I remind you all, colleagues, that the Commission will provide us with a new and more technical briefing and Q and A question and answer session on this package. It will take place on Wednesday, 9th September at 14:30. So the secretariat will send you invitations for for the members for the three files and the teams that working on this. And this will be very useful for for the further on.
Anyway, I think we have come to the end of our meeting now. Please note that the next committee meeting will take place on 28th Mr. Danielsson September at 3 o'clock. So, many thanks to all the participants, interpreters, ushers and the technicians. Thank you all. I wish you a very nice afternoon.
Thank you.
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