CER Position - Inception Impact Assessment on Revision of Rail State aid Guidelines

CER members welcome the European Commission's Inception Impact Assessment (IIA) for the Revision of the Community Guidelines on State aid for railway undertakings. 

The sector fully supports the general objective of the revision, which is to streamline and simplify provisions of the Guidelines to help the rail sector increase its competitiveness and to shift the current balance between different modes of transport. 

As rightly stated in the IIA, no action, i.e. the mere continuation of use of the current text of the Guidelines, would mean that the latest regulatory and market developments are not taken into account, and that the Guidelines would be unable to effectively contribute to achievement of the targets of the European Green Deal and the policy objectives of the Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy. Moreover, rail is one of the sectors that suffered the highest losses as a result of the COVID-19 crisis and needs to receive adequate support for its recovery and future growth, which should be further supported by the updated text of the Guidelines in a timely manner. 

We believe therefore that there is an urgency to update the text of the Guidelines in order for them to be able to achieve their objectives.

Our thoughts on the specific policy objectives listed in the IIA may be found in the following position paper available to donwload below.