Text tabled : A7-0367/2011

  Paul Murphy (GUE/NGL). - Mr President, I voted against the recast of the Railway Directive because it is very clear that, despite the promises of the neo-Liberal doctrinaires in this House and elsewhere, the Railway Directive will remain the ugly duckling that it is and will never become a swan. It continues on the course, which is already failing across Europe, of chopping up our public transport systems into bite-size pieces for the private sector to gobble up.

The result is clear right across Europe, where you have services being cut back, leaving communities completely isolated, you have a lack of investment in maintenance that has caused an increase in delays, an increase in down-time and, most worryingly, an increase in accidents, including fatal accidents. You also have railway workers suffering under the burden of a massive increase of working pressure and of massive attacks on their working conditions and trade union rights.

Developing our railway services means pushing back the private sector, it means pushing the private sector out of our vital public transport services, it means renationalisation of those parts that have been privatised so far. It is on that basis – together with massive investment by the public sector, together with democratic control by the railway workers and users – that you could develop a railway system that is user friendly, environmentally sustainable, reliable and safe.