Regulation (EU) No 913/2010 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 September 2010 concerning a European rail network for competitive freight Text with EEA relevance

CHAPTER I

GENERAL

Article 1

Purpose and scope

Article 2

Definitions

In addition to the definitions referred to in paragraph 1:

(a) ‘freight corridor’ means all designated railway lines, including railway ferry lines, on the territory of or between Member States, and, where appropriate, European third countries, linking two or more terminals, along a principal route and, where appropriate, diversionary routes and sections connecting them, including the railway infrastructure and its equipment and relevant rail services in accordance with Article 5 of Directive 2001/14/EC;

(b) ‘implementation plan’ means the document presenting the means and the strategy that the parties concerned intend to implement in order to develop over a specified period the measures which are necessary and sufficient to establish the freight corridor;

(c) ‘terminal’ means the installation provided along the freight corridor which has been specially arranged to allow either the loading and/or the unloading of goods onto/from freight trains, and the integration of rail freight services with road, maritime, river and air services, and either the forming or modification of the composition of freight trains; and, where necessary, performing border procedures at borders with European third countries.

CHAPTER II

DESIGNATION AND GOVERNANCE OF THE INTERNATIONAL RAIL CORRIDORS FOR COMPETITIVE FREIGHT

Article 3

Designation of initial freight corridors

The Member States referred to in the Annex shall make operational by the dates set out therein the initial freight corridors set out in the Annex. The Member States concerned shall inform the Commission about the establishment of the freight corridors.

Article 4

Criteria for further freight corridors

The selection of further freight corridors referred to in Article 5 and the modification of freight corridors referred to in Article 6 shall take account of the following criteria:

(a) the crossing by the freight corridor of the territory of at least three Member States, or of two Member States if the distance between the terminals served by the freight corridor is greater than 500 km;

(b) the consistency of the freight corridor with the TEN-T, the ERTMS corridors and/or the corridors defined by RNE;

(c) the integration of TEN-T priority projects (⁷) into the freight corridor;

(d) the balance between the socio-economic costs and benefits stemming from the establishment of the freight corridor;

(e) the consistency of all of the freight corridors proposed by the Member States in order to set up a European rail network for competitive freight;

(f) the development of rail freight traffic and major trade flows and goods traffic along the freight corridor;

(g) if appropriate, better interconnections between Member States and European third countries;

(h) the interest of the applicants in the freight corridor;

(i) the existence of good interconnections with other modes of transport, in particular due to an adequate network of terminals, including in maritime and inland ports.

Article 5

Selection of further freight corridors

In order to meet the obligation under paragraphs 1 and 2, the Member States concerned shall send jointly to the Commission a letter of intent by 10 November 2012.

Article 6

Modification of further freight corridors

Article 7

Reconciliation

When two or more Member States concerned do not agree on the establishment or modification of a freight corridor, and with regard to the railway infrastructure located on their territory, the Commission, at the request of one of the Member States concerned, shall consult the Committee referred to in Article 21 on this matter. The opinion of the Commission shall be sent to the Member States concerned. The Member States concerned shall take this opinion into account in order to find a solution and shall take a decision on the basis of mutual consent.

Article 8

Governance of freight corridors

Article 9

Measures for implementing the freight corridor plan

The management board shall draw up an implementation plan at the latest 6 months before making the freight corridor operational and shall submit it for approval to the executive board. This plan shall include:

(a) a description of the characteristics of the freight corridor, including bottlenecks, and the programme of measures necessary for creating the freight corridor;

(b) the essential elements of the study referred to in paragraph 3;

(c) the objectives for the freight corridors, in particular in terms of performance of the freight corridor expressed as the quality of the service and the capacity of the freight corridor in accordance with the provisions of Article 19;

(d) the investment plan referred to in Article 11; and

(e) the measures to implement the provisions of Articles 12 to 19.

Article 10

Consulting applicants

The management board shall introduce consultation mechanisms with a view to the proper participation of the applicants likely to use the freight corridor. In particular, it shall ensure that applicants are consulted before the implementation plan referred to in Article 9 is submitted to the executive board.

CHAPTER III

INVESTMENT IN THE FREIGHT CORRIDOR

Article 11

Investment planning

The management board shall draw up and periodically review an investment plan, which includes details of indicative medium and long-term investment for infrastructure in the freight corridor, and shall submit it for approval to the executive board. This plan shall include:

(a) the list of the projects foreseen for the extension, renewal or redeployment of railway infrastructure and its equipment along the freight corridor and the relevant financial requirements and sources of finance;

(b) a deployment plan relating to the interoperable systems along the freight corridor which satisfies the essential requirements and the technical specifications for interoperability which apply to the network as defined in Directive 2008/57/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 June 2008 on the interoperability of the rail system within the Community (⁹). This deployment plan shall be based on a cost-benefit analysis of the use of interoperable systems;

(c) a plan for the management of the capacity of freight trains which may run on the freight corridor, which includes removing the identified bottlenecks. This plan may be based on improving speed management and on increasing the length, loading gauge, and load hauled or axle load authorised for the trains running on the freight corridor; and

(d) where applicable, reference to the contribution of the Union envisaged under financial programmes of the Union.

Article 12

Coordination of works

The management board shall coordinate and ensure the publication in one place, in an appropriate manner and timeframe, of their schedule for carrying out all the works on the infrastructure and its equipment that would restrict available capacity on the freight corridor.

CHAPTER IV

MANAGEMENT OF THE FREIGHT CORRIDOR

Article 13

One-stop shop for application for infrastructure capacity

Article 14

Capacity allocated to freight trains

Article 15

Authorised applicants

Notwithstanding Article 16(1) of Directive 2001/14/EC, applicants other than railway undertakings or the international groupings that they make up, such as shippers, freight forwarders and combined transport operators, may request international pre-arranged train paths specified in Article 14(3) and the reserve capacity specified in Article 14(5). In order to use such a train path for freight transport on the freight corridor these applicants shall appoint a railway undertaking to conclude an agreement with the infrastructure manager in accordance with Article 10(5) of Directive 91/440/EEC.

Article 16

Traffic management

Article 17

Traffic management in the event of disturbance

Article 18

Information on the conditions of use of the freight corridor

The management board shall draw up, regularly update and publish a document containing:

(a) all the information contained in the network statement for national networks regarding the freight corridor, drawn up in accordance with the procedure set out in Article 3 of Directive 2001/14/EC;

(b) the list and characteristics of terminals, in particular information concerning the conditions and methods of accessing the terminals;

(c) the information concerning the procedures referred to in Articles 13 to 17 of this Regulation; and

(d) the implementation plan.

Article 19

Quality of service on the freight corridor

Article 20

Regulatory bodies

CHAPTER V

FINAL PROVISIONS

Article 21

Committee procedure

The period laid down in Article 5(6) of Decision 1999/468/EC shall be set at 3 months.

Article 22

Monitoring implementation

Every two years from the time of the establishment of a freight corridor, the executive board referred to in Article 8(1) shall present to the Commission the results of the implementation plan for that corridor. The Commission shall analyse those results and notify the Committee referred to in Article 21 of its analysis.

Article 23

Report

The Commission shall periodically examine the application of this Regulation. It shall submit a report to the European Parliament and the Council, for the first time by 10 November 2015, and every three years thereafter.

Article 24

Transitional measures

This Regulation shall not apply to the Republic of Cyprus and Malta for as long as no railway system is established within their territory.

Article 25

Entry into force

This Regulation shall enter into force on the 20th day following its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union.

This Regulation shall be binding in its entirety and directly applicable in all Member States.

ANNEX

	Member States	Principal routes (1)	Establishment of freight corridors:
‘Rhine-Alpine’	NL, BE, DE, IT	Zeebrugge-Antwerpen/Amsterdam/Vlissingen ((+))/Rotterdam-Duisburg-[Basel]-Milano- Genova	By 10 November 2013
‘North Sea – Mediterranean’	NL, BE, LU, FR, UK ((+))	Glasgow (1)/Edinburgh (1)/Southampton (1)/Felixstowe (1)-London ((+))/Dunkerque ((+))/Lille ((+))/Liège ((+))/Paris ((+))/Amsterdam ((+))-Rotterdam-Zeebrugge ((+))/Antwerpen-Luxembourg-Metz-Dijon-Lyon/[Basel]-Marseille ((+))	By 10 November 2013
‘Scandinavian – Mediterranean’	SE, DK, DE, AT, IT	Stockholm/[Oslo] ((+))/Trelleborg ((+))-Malmö-København-Hamburg-Innsbruck-Verona-La Spezia ((+))/Livorno ((+))/Ancona ((+))/Taranto ((+))/Augusta ((+))/ Palermo	By 10 November 2015
‘Atlantic’	PT, ES, FR, DE ((+))	Sines-Lisboa/Leixões —  Madrid-Medina del Campo/ Bilbao/San Sebastian-Irun- Bordeaux-Paris/Le Havre/Metz – Strasbourg ((+))/Mannheim ((+)) Sines-Elvas/Algeciras	By 10 November 2013
‘Baltic – Adriatic’	PL, CZ, SK, AT, IT, SI	Swinoujscie ((+))/Gdynia-Katowice-Ostrava/Žilina-Bratislava/Wien/Klagenfurt-Udine-Venezia/ Trieste/ /Bologna/Ravenna Graz-Maribor-Ljubljana-Koper/Trieste	By 10 November 2015
‘Mediterranean’	ES, FR, IT, SI, HU, HR ((+))	Almería-Valencia/Algeciras/Madrid-Zaragoza/Barcelona-Marseille-Lyon-Turin-Milano-Verona-Padova/Venezia-Trieste/Koper- Ljubljana-Budapest Ljubljana ((+))/Rijeka ((+))-Zagreb ((+))-Budapest-Zahony (Hungarian-Ukrainian border)	By 10 November 2013
‘Orient/East-Med’	CZ, AT, SK, HU, RO, BG, EL, DE (*1)	—  Bucureșt-Constanța Bremerhaven (1)/Wilhelmshaven (1)/Rostock (1)/Hamburg (1)-Praha-Vienna/Bratislava-Budapest —  Vidin-Sofia-Burgas (1)/Svilengrad (1) (Bulgarian-Turkish border)/ Promachonas-Thessaloniki- Athína-Patras (*1)	By 10 November 2013
‘North Sea – Baltic’ ((°))	DE, NL, BE, PL, LT, LV (1), EE (1)	Wilhelmshaven ((+))/Bremerhaven/Hamburg ((+))/ Amsterdam ((+))/Rotterdam/Antwerpen-Aachen/Berlin-Warsaw-Terespol (Poland-Belarus border)/Kaunas-Riga (1)-Tallinn (1)	By 10 November 2015
‘Rhine-Danube’ ((‡))	FR, DE, AT, SK, HU, RO, CZ	Strasbourg-Mannheim-Frankfurt-Nürnberg-Wels Strasbourg-Stuttgart-München-Salzburg-Wels-Wien-Bratislava-Budapest-Arad-Brașov/Craiova-București-Constanța Čierna and Tisou (Slovak/ Ukrainian border)-Košice-Žilina-Horní Lideč-Praha-München/Nürnberg	By 10 November 2020
(1) ‘/’ means alternative routes. In line with the TEN-T guidelines, the Atlantic and the Mediterranean corridors should in the future be completed by the Sines/Algeciras-Madrid-Paris freight axis which crosses the central Pyrenees via a low elevation tunnel. (2) (+)  Routes marked with + shall be included in the respective corridors at the latest 3 years after the date of establishment set out in this table. Existing structures defined under Article 8 and Article 13(1) of this Regulation shall be adjusted with the participation of additional Member States and infrastructure managers in the respective corridors. These inclusions shall be based on market studies and take into consideration the aspect of existing passenger and freight transport in line with Article 14(3) of this Regulation. (*1) Routes marked with * shall be included in the respective corridors at the latest 5 years after the date of establishment set out in this table. Existing structures defined under Article 8 and Article 13(1) of this Regulation shall be adjusted with the participation of additional Member States and infrastructure managers in the respective corridors. These inclusions shall be based on market studies and take into consideration the aspect of existing passenger and freight transport in line with Article 14(3) of this Regulation. (3) (°)  Until the realisation of a Rail Baltic line in 1 435  mm nominal track gauge, the specificities of different track gauge systems shall be taken into account in the establishment and operation of this corridor. (4) (‡)  The creation of this corridor shall be based on market studies and take into consideration the aspect of existing passenger and freight transport in line with Article 14(3) of this Regulation. The section ‘Čierna and Tisou (Slovak/ Ukrainian border)-Košice-Žilina-Horní Lideč-Praha’ shall be established by 10 November 2013.