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Verbatim report of proceedings
Wednesday, 9 May 2007 - Brussels OJ edition

Public passenger transport services by rail and road (debate)
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  Paolo Costa, on behalf of the ALDE Group. – (IT) Mr President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, almost seven years have been devoted to drafting the report in question. Have they been well spent? They have been seven years following which Mr Simpson still has to talk in terms of our hopefully obtaining something better in a subsequent revision, and following which we need a last-minute amendment in order to try to obtain a compromise. It has taken seven years or, rather, seven years and two months to resolve the issue. I do not believe that this is a problem of life or death. Naturally, Parliament will have its say, and I trust that it will be possible for some of the things hopefully said by Parliament tomorrow to be accepted by the Council, so avoiding the need for conciliation.

It has to be said that I do not feel able to say that we have done a thoroughly good job. Are we able to say that we have done a good job when the reserved right to award contracts directly is so extensive as in fact to eliminate or hugely reduce contracting out on a genuinely competitive basis? Do we, indeed, face the possibility of the in-house awarding of contracts even for services administered on a monopoly basis at national level? Is it possible that the in-house contractor or manager will subcontract services out ‘substantially’ or ‘significantly’ – these being adverbs not defined in law? Is it possible that such a subcontractor, even without a tender, might continue more than 50% of the time merely because he is promising investment? In short, are we likely to be paying too little for rail services in third countries, making it difficult to supply said services? Can it really be that there was no possibility of discussing this problem too and that no solutions can be found to it? Do we really still have to avoid finding adequate solutions to these aspects too?

I want, then, to make a final heartfelt appeal not only to all my fellow Members but also to the Council and the Commission: why cannot we try to make this last effort to provide a thoroughly genuine, reliable and useful solution capable of going beyond the vague terms ‘significant’ and ‘substantial’ which, in my opinion, are really not commensurate with the legal basis of the issue? In no way are we complying with the fourth criterion set out in the Altmark judgment. I really do perceive in all this a degree of haste that, after seven wasted years, seems to me to be unjustified by the facts.

We have tabled a number of amendments designed to correct these structures. We do not think that they need all to be agreed to, but if some of them were accepted we should succeed, after seven years and two months, in obtaining an outcome certainly better than that which we should otherwise obtain with the documents we have before us.

 
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