Regulation 2008/1335 - Amendment of Regulation (EC) No 881/2004 establishing a European Railway Agency (Agency Regulation) - Main contents

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

L 354/51

Regulation (EC) No 881/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council (3) of 29 April 2004 established a European Railway Agency, hereinafter referred to as ‘the Agency’, to make a technical contribution to creating a European railway area without frontiers. Following developments in Community legislation on rail interoperability and safety and market developments and on the basis of the experience gained in operating the Agency and the relationship between the Agency and the Commission, certain amendments need to be made to that Regulation, and in particular certain tasks need to be added.

National rules are to be notified to the Commission both in accordance with Directive 2008/57/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 June 2008 on the interoperability of the rail system within the Community (recast) (4), (hereinafter referred to as the ‘Railway Interoperability Directive’), and Directive 2004/49/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 29 April 2004 on safety on the Community's railways (Railway Safety Directive) (5). The two sets of rules should therefore be examined in order to assess, in particular, if they are compatible with the common safety methods and the technical specifications for interoperability (TSIs) in force, as well as if they enable the common safety targets in force to be achieved.

In order to facilitate the procedure for authorising the placing in service of vehicles which do not conform to the relevant TSIs, all the technical and safety rules in force in each Member State should be classified into three groups and the results of this classification should be presented in a reference document. The Agency is therefore required to draw up a draft for creating and updating this document by cross-referencing the national rules for each of the relevant technical parameters and by providing ad hoc technical opinions on specific aspects of cross-accepting projects. After reviewing the list of the parameters, the Agency may recommend that it be modified.

Due to its legal competence and its high level of technical expertise, the Agency is the entity which should provide clarification on complex matters emerging from the activity in the sector. Therefore, in the context of the procedures authorising the placing in service of vehicles, it should be possible to request the Agency to issue technical opinions in the case of a negative decision by a national safety authority or on the equivalence of national rules for the technical parameters established in the Railway Interoperability Directive.

It should be possible to request the opinion of the Agency on urgent modifications to TSIs.

Under Article 13 of Regulation (EC) No 881/2004, the Agency may monitor the quality of the work of the bodies notified by the Member States. A study conducted by the Commission has shown that there is much scope for interpretation of the criteria to be applied for notifying these bodies. Without prejudice to the Member States' responsibility with regard to the bodies that they choose to...