Rail passengers' rights and obligations

Briefing 12-01-2018

This note seeks to provide an initial analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the European Commission's impact assessment (IA) accompanying the above proposal, adopted on 27 September 2017 and referred to Parliament's Committee on Transport and Tourism (TRAN). The proposal aims to amend Regulation (EC) No 1371/2007 in order to strengthen the rights for all EU rail passengers, and to reduce the 'burden on railway undertakings due to the inconsistent application of the regulation' (IA, p. 9). The proposal follows a Commission report (COM(2013) 587 final) on the application of the regulation, which 'highlighted certain problematic areas', and a second Commission report (COM(2015) 117 final) on exemptions granted by Member States, which 'identified the extensive use of exemptions as a major hindrance to the uniform application of the regulation' (explanatory memorandum of the proposal, p. 2). In addition, the proposal follows the ruling of the Court of Justice of the EU of 26 September 2013 in Case C-509/11, which is linked to the 'force majeure' issue described in the following section. The European Parliament has regularly taken a stand on passenger rights, by submitting written questions or by adopting resolutions.