Council Directive 96/48/EC of 23 July 1996 on the interoperability of the trans-European high-speed rail system
Modified by
Regulation (EC) No 1882/2003 of the European Parliament and of the Councilof 29 September 2003adapting to Council Decision 1999/468/EC the provisions relating to committees which assist the Commission in the exercise of its implementing powers laid down in instruments subject to the procedure referred to in Article 251 of the EC Treaty, 32003R1882, October 31, 2003
Directive 2004/50/EC of the European Parliament and of the Councilof 29 April 2004amending Council Directive 96/48/EC on the interoperability of the trans-European high-speed rail system and Directive 2001/16/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on the interoperability of the trans-European conventional rail system, 32004L0050, April 30, 2004
Commission Directive 2007/32/ECof 1 June 2007amending Annex VI to Council Directive 96/48/EC on the interoperability of the trans-European high-speed rail system and Annex VI to Directive 2001/16/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on the interoperability of the trans-European conventional rail system(Text with EEA relevance), 32007L0032, June 2, 2007
Directive 2008/57/EC of the European Parliament and of the Councilof 17 June 2008on the interoperability of the rail system within the Community(Recast)(Text with EEA relevance), 32008L0057, July 18, 2008
Corrected by
Corrigendum to Council Directive 96/48/EC of 3 July 1996 on the interoperability of the trans-European high-speed rail system, 31996L0048R(01), October 16, 1996
Council Directive 96/48/ECof 23 July 1996on the interoperability of the trans-European high-speed rail systemTHE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION,Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Community, and in particular the third paragraph of Article 129d thereof,Having regard to the proposal from the CommissionOJ No C 134, 17. 5. 1994, p. 6.,Having regard to the opinion of the Economic and Social CommitteeOJ No C 397, 31. 12. 1994, p. 8.,Having regard to the opinion of the Committee of the RegionsOJ No C 210, 14. 8. 1995, p. 38.,Acting in accordance with the procedure laid down in Article 189cOpinion of the European Parliament of 19 January 1995 (OJ No C 43, 20. 2. 1995, p. 60), Council common position of 8 December 1995 (OJ No 356, 30. 12. 1995, p. 43) and Decision of the European Parliament of 16 April 1996 (OJ No C 141, 13. 5. 1996, p. 48).,Whereas in order to enable citizens of the Union, economic operators and regional and local authorities to benefit to the full from the advantages deriving from establishing an area without internal frontiers, it is advisable, in particular, to improve the interlinking and interoperability of national high-speed train networks, as well as access thereto;Whereas a high-level working party consisting of representatives of the governments of the Member States, of the European railways and of the European railway industry convened by the Commission in order to meet the request expressed by the Council in its resolution of 4 and 5 December 1989 drew up the master plan for a European high-speed train network;Whereas in December 1990 the Commission sent to the Council a communication on the high-speed train network, and whereas the Council gave a favourable reception to that communication in its resolution of 17 December 1990OJ No C 33, 8. 2. 1991, p. 1.;Whereas Article 129c of the Treaty provides that the Community shall implement any measures that may prove necessary to ensure network interoperability, in particular in the field of technical standardization;Whereas the commercial operation of high-speed trains requires excellent compatibility between the characteristics of the infrastructure and those of the rolling stock; whereas performance levels, safety, quality of service and cost depend upon such compatibility as does, in particular, the interoperability of the European high-speed rail system;Whereas pursuant to Council Directive 91/440/EEC of 29 July 1991 on the development of the Community's railwaysOJ No L 237, 24. 8. 1991, p. 25. railway companies must have increased access to the rail networks of the Member States, which in turn requires infrastructure, equipment and rolling stock interoperability;Whereas the Member States are responsible for ensuring compliance with the safety, health and consumer protection rules applying to the railway networks in general during the design, construction, placing in service and operation of those railways; whereas, together with the local authorities, they also have responsibilities in respect of rights in land, regional planning and environmental protection; whereas that is also especially pertinent with regard to high-speed train networks;Whereas Council Directive 85/337/EEC of 27 June 1985 on the assessment of the effects of certain public and private projects on the environmentOJ No L 175, 5. 7. 1985, p. 40. requires an assessment of the impact on the environment of the construction of lines for long-distance rail traffic;Whereas national regulations and the railways' internal rules and the technical specifications which the railways apply contain major differences; whereas those national regulations and internal rules incorporate techniques that are specific to the national industries; whereas they prescribe specific dimensions and devices and special characteristics; whereas this situation runs counter to high-speed trains being able to run normally throughout Community territory;Whereas, over the years, this situation has created very close links between the national railway industries and the national railways, to the detriment of the genuine opening-up of contracts; whereas, in order to enhance their competitiveness at world level those industries require an open, competitive European market;Whereas it is therefore appropriate to define essential requirements for the whole of the Community which will apply to the trans-European high-speed train system;Whereas, in view of the extent and complexity of the trans-European high-speed rail system, it has proved necessary for practical reasons to break it down into subsystems; whereas for each of those subsystems the essential requirements must be specified, the basic parameters laid down and the technical specifications determined for the whole of the Community, particularly in respect of constituents and interfaces, in order to meet those essential requirements; whereas, however, certain subsystems (environment, users and operation) will be subject to technical specifications for interoperability (TSIs) only in so far as is necessary to ensure interoperability in the fields of infrastructure, energy, control-and-command and signalling and rolling-stock;Whereas the introduction of provisions on the interoperability of the trans-European high-speed rail system must not create unjustified cost-benefit barriers to the preservation of the existing rail network of each Member State, but must endeavour to maintain the objective of the circulation of high-speed trains throughout the Community;Whereas individual Member States should be allowed not to apply certain technical specifications for interoperability in specific cases, provided that there are procedures to ensure that such possibilities for derogation are justified; whereas Article 129c of the Treaty requires the Community's activities in the area of interoperability to take into account the potential economic viability of projects;Whereas in order to comply with the appropriate provisions on government procurement procedures in the rail sector and in particular Directive 93/38/EECCouncil Directive 93/38/EEC of 14 June 1993 coordinating the procurement procedures of entities operating in the water, energy, transport and telecommunications sectors (OJ No L 199, 9. 8. 1993, p. 84), as amended by the 1994 Act of Accession., contracting entities must include technical specifications in the general documents or the contract documents relating to each contract; whereas it is necessary to build up a body of European specifications to serve as references for those technical specifications;Whereas, within the meaning of Directive 93/38/EEC, a European specification is a common technical specification, a European technical approval or a national standard implementing a European standard; whereas harmonized European standards are to be drawn up by a European standardization body such as the European Committee for Standardization (CEN), the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization (CENELEC) or the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), to the order of the Commission, and their references published in the Official Journal of the European Communities;Whereas it would be in the Community's interests for there to be an international system of standardization capable of generating standards which are actually used by those involved in international trade and which meet the requirements of Community policy; whereas the European standardization bodies must therefore continue their cooperation with the international standardization bodies;Whereas contracting entities define such further requirements as are necessary to complete European specifications or other standards; whereas those specifications must not prevent the essential requirements that have been harmonized at Community level and which the trans-European high-speed train system must satisfy, from being met;Whereas the procedures governing the assessment of conformity or of suitability of use of constituents must be based on the use of the modules covered by Decision 93/465/EECCouncil Decision 93/465/EEC of 22 July 1993 concerning the modules for the various phases of the conformity assessment procedures and the rules for the affixing and use of the CE conformity marking, which are intended to be used in the technical harmonization directives (OJ No L 220, 30. 8. 1993, p. 23).; whereas, as far as possible and in order to promote the development of the industries concerned, it is appropriate to expand the procedures involving a system of quality assurance; whereas the notion of constituent covers both tangible objects and intangible objects such as software;Whereas the suitability for use of the most critical constituents as regards safety, availability or system economy should be assessed;Whereas in their contract documents, contracting entities, lay down, in particular for constituents, by reference to the European specifications, the characteristics which must be met, in contractual terms, by the manufacturers; whereas, this being the case, constituent conformity is mainly linked to their area of use in order to ensure and guarantee the interoperability of the system, and not only to their free movement on the Community market;Whereas it is therefore not necessary for a manufacturer to affix the CE mark to constituents that are subject to the provisions of this Directive as, on the basis of the assessment of conformity and/or suitability for use conducted in accordance with the procedures provided for that purpose in the Directive, the manufacturer's declaration of conformity is sufficient; whereas that does not affect the obligation on manufacturers to affix the CE mark to certain components in order to certify their compliance with other Community provisions relating to them;Whereas the subsystems constituting the trans-European high-speed rail system must be subjected to a verification procedure; whereas that verification must enable the authorities responsible for authorizing their placing in service to be assured that at the stages of design, construction and placing in service the result is in line with the regulations and technical operational provisions in force; whereas that must also enable manufacturers to be able to count upon equality of treatment whatever the country; whereas it is therefore necessary to lay down a module defining the principles and conditions applying to EC verification of subsystems;Whereas the EC verification procedure is based on TSIs; whereas those TSIs are drawn up to the order of the Commission by the joint body representing the infrastructure managers, the railway companies and the industry; whereas the reference to TSIs is required in order to ensure interoperability of the trans-European high-speed rail system and whereas those TSIs are subject to the provisions of Article 18 of Directive 93/38/EEC;Whereas the notified bodies responsible for examining the conformity assessment procedures or that applying to the use of constituents, together with the procedure for the assessment of subsystems must, particularly in the absence of any European specification, coordinate their decisions as closely as possible;Whereas Council Directive 91/440/EEC requires a separation of activities, in accounting terms, between transport service operation and those concerning railway infrastructure management; whereas, this being the case, the specialized services provided by the railway infrastructure managers designated as notified bodies should be structured in such a way as to meet the criteria which must apply to this type of body; whereas other specialized bodies may be notified where these meet the same criteria;Whereas interoperability within the trans-European high-speed train system is Community wide in scale; whereas the Member States are unable, on an individual basis, to take the action needed in order to achieve that interoperability; whereas it is therefore necessary, pursuant to the principle of subsidiarity, for this action to be taken at Community level,HAS ADOPTED THIS DIRECTIVE: