Научен доклад ID 2712 : 2025/3

Formally, the history of the reform of the railway sector in the EU began in 1991. Year after year, the process has developed and improved. The idea of introducing access prices for the use of infrastructure officially appeared in documents after Decision 82/529/EEC of the Council of the European Economic Community of 1982, which determined the costs of international rail freight transport. However, the conditions for market-oriented railway operations and the introduction of competition in the railway market were not created. The railway sector took its first steps towards liberalization in 1991, when the European Commission adopted Directive 91/440. As already mentioned, the principle of infrastructure access pricing was first provided for in Directives 91/440/EEC and 95/19/EEC and was developed in more detail in Directive 2001/14/EC. However, the level of implementation of the package of directives was insufficient to establish a single open market. For this reason, two years after the adoption of the First Railway Package, the European Commission proposed the Second Railway Package in 2002. Within this package, several main guidelines can be identified, namely: opening the international freight market, implementing the safety and interoperability directives of the Trans-European Rail Network and the high-speed rail network.

Of particular importance is Directive 2012/34/EU , the so-called ”recast” directive (Directive 2012/34/EU recasting the First Railway Package contains the main provisions for market opening in the railway sector). Directive 2012/34/EU establishing a Single European Railway Area is of essential importance for the railway sector, given that its content s 12 key directives from previous railway packages. The latest developments regarding the revision of Directive 2012/34/EU concern financial unbundling in the railway sector. Regarding this directive, there was much controversy regarding the amendments concerning the differentiation of access charges for the use of infrastructure.

Railway infrastructure charges have the functions of covering the marginal direct costs of infrastructure and thus contributing to the stable financial basis of the infrastructure manager, achieving higher efficiency in infrastructure management, sending clear and consistent economic signals to railway undertakings, leading them to make rational decisions. These functions are the basis of the proposed report.