Mrs. Walker, could you present to our audience the activities of IRG-Rail and its main goals?

- Thank you for the opportunity to talk about our work. IRG-Rail is a forum for cooperation between independent regulatory bodies, to help them share best practice and information on regulatory issues. It was founded in June 2011, bringing together the representatives of independent regulatory bodies from 15 countries (Austria, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, France, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Latvia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland). IRG-Rail’s basic goals are to promote the interests of passenger and freight users in Europe, encourage sustainable and effective competition in the provisions of passenger and freight transport, promote a consistent approach to the European regulatory framework for railways and speak with a strong and common voice at community level.

Our ultimate aim, shared with the Commission, is a European rail market that is competitive, efficient and sustainable. Rail should be attractive to passengers, freight customers and investors.

This cannot be achieved without regulation that is independent, proportionate and consistent. Since our establishment, we have already started to show that regulatory bodies can work together to develop pragmatic solutions to real-life issues of cross-border regulation – from freight corridors to passenger cabotage. We also work to put forward our views on emerging EU law, engaging with the Commission, trying to make sure that legislative proposals are proportionate and practical.


You have been elected recently as the new Chair of IRG-Rail. What will be your main priorities at this post?

- The initial text of the Fourth Package came out last week [in the end of January], and I am sure that we will be spending plenty of time on that…

My main priority as Chair is to continue the excellent groundwork that has been done since IRG-Rail was created. We have already grown to 21 members, but the experience and expertise of other regulatory bodies will only make us stronger, and I hope that we will have more members soon. We have set up four working groups, focusing on access (including freight corridors), legislative proposals, charging, and market monitoring. These groups will continue to develop the principles and practice of cooperative regulation.

We will also pursue our efforts to make IRG-Rail a visible and credible player on the European stage. I will continue our open dialogue with our European colleagues. My diary is filling up with meetings with key European stakeholders: it is important that we do not just speak to each other, but that we reach out to the Commission, MEPs, and industry representatives to understand their positions and share our experience and views.


What are the main challenges related to the Fourth Package and what is the position of IRG-Rail on them?

- Our intention is to carefully monitor and influence the development of this major legislative proposal. We have already published our initial thoughts, acknowledging that the opening of the domestic passenger market will be a major step towards a competitive and sustainable single rail market in Europe. Market opening can only be successful when there is robust regulatory oversight and accompanied by clear framework conditions. To create a functioning, competitive rail market we need to look both at eliminating the barriers to entry on one hand, and creating and preserving the network benefits that come from cooperation on the other. It is also important to strike a balance between strong legal clarity and member-state discretion.

We are currently examining the Commission’s proposal and will be publishing our position later this year.


Is there a place for a pan-European regulatory body for rail infrastructure and services? Do we need national independent regulatory bodies as well?

- We published a position paper in September 2011 on this very subject. To date we believe that the establishment of a rail regulatory body at the European level is neither useful nor necessary. Regulatory oversight over the rail market is best served at national level. Flexibility and room for manoeuvre at national level are essential for taking specific national conditions into account. Rail regulation is on-site regulation, and strong and independent national regulatory bodies are better able to perform this task. The on-site knowledge lies with the national regulators and only they are able to respond swiftly and appropriately to location-specific issues.

Between us at IRG-Rail we all have plenty of experience in dealing with appeals, market monitoring, access decisions, and so on – the normal caseload of regulation. In each case, most of the legal, economic and technical factors are strongly determined by the national or local context. If we transferred this competency to a pan-European level there is a genuine risk that decisions will be slower, more expensive, less well-informed, and possibly wrong.

The creation of a European regulator would also run counter the strengthening of national regulatory bodies’ independence as a prerequisite to ensuring the efficient and non-discriminatory use of rail infrastructure and the pursuit of effective regulation. A European regulator might even hinder the development of independent and adequately resourced regulatory bodies in Member States where they have just been or have yet to be introduced.

Of course, trains cross national borders – and we want international traffic to increase. The question of jurisdiction is important and this is an area where some people see a potential role for regulation at the European level. However, one of the founding principles of IRG-Rail is that independent, national RBs can solve such issues through transparent cooperation. Coordination and consistency of regulatory approaches is key for cross-border traffic. We strongly believe that this can be achieved through an adequate legislative framework with close and effective cooperation between strong and independent national regulatory bodies as required under European legislation. A European regulator would not be able to perform this task by itself; it would always have to rely on the knowledge of national regulatory bodies. By sharing their experience and knowledge of their own railway sector, regulatory bodies can agree common regulatory approaches to the application of European legislation.

To this end we have a key role in developing best practices and common approaches, thereby fostering coordination and regulatory consistency. We are very confident that IRG-Rail will fulfill its potential of ensuring closer cooperation of regulatory bodies and by this contribute to the establishment of a real internal market and removing market barriers for international rail transport.

For example, IRG-Rail has successfully agreed a transparent procedure when regulatory bodies have to deal with cross-border complaints and publish guidelines setting out the method, criteria and procedures for cooperation clarifying how potential complaints can be dealt with and this without recourse to an EU-level regulator.


Is it possible to combine the functions of such national regulators within the structures of existing network regulators (e.g. electricity, gas, telecom, water, etc.)?

- Certainly: we already see this in a number of member states, such as Germany and the Netherlands. The experience that these regulators bring from other sectors is often very useful, and there may be economies of scale involved. In Great Britain, I am Chair of a rail regulator with responsibility for both market and safety regulation – again, several European regulatory bodies are ‘combined’ in this way as well.


What will be the main challenges for infrastructure development in the next years?

- The Commission is really driving the pace on this. The TEN-T programme, together with an interoperability agenda that is becoming broader and deeper in scope, will definitely keep infrastructure managers (and funders) busy over the coming decades. Now, the potential benefits of a technically harmonised European infrastructure are clear enough, but the list of requirements can sometimes be intimidating. I think it is important to prioritise areas where the marginal gains in capacity and efficiency will help to fund later improvements.

In their transport white paper, the Commission mentions pan-European infrastructure managers – presumably operating under contracts that are let by competent authorities. This may be a natural step in the future, but we’re still a long way off at the moment. In the meantime, I think there may be valuable work to be done on the benchmarking of infrastructure costs. This might be an area for IRG-Rail to look at – exploring the discrepancies between unit costs in different member states, and helping to drive out inefficiencies through the charging review cycle.


Do you expect more active participation from Bulgaria in this process and in the activities of IRG-Rail?

- I certainly hope so. The regulatory body from Bulgaria is not a member of IRG-Rail to date and we hope that they will join in the future.

Bulgaria sits at a strategic junction for international rail, between Turkey, the Black Sea, and the rest of Europe. We would benefit from Bulgarian experience in issues of international rail services, particularly on how things have changed following the recent structural reforms and EU corridor investment.
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Mrs. Anna Walker is a British civil servant and regulator of services. Currently she is chairing the Office of Rail Regulation of the United Kingdom and on 1 January 2013 she became the new IRG-Rail Chair for 2013. She was Chief Executive of the Healthcare Commission from its formation on 1 April 2004 until 31 March 2009. Her previous roles include deputy director at the Office of Telecommunications (OFTEL) during the mid-1990s and director general at the Department for Trade and Industry, responsible for the Government’s energy policy during the late 1990s. She has also had responsibility for land use and rural affairs at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.