The principles of the European Union provide for the presence of a state body that regulates, in particular, rail transport.
The European Commission has prepared the first annual report for the European Council regarding the steps to be taken by Ukraine after the country applied for EU membership in 2022 against the backdrop of Russian aggression.
As TTS writes, the document contains a section dedicated to the necessary steps in the transport industry, in particular, railways. At the same time, the speed of reforms in transport is rated as very slow with limited progress, which is one of the lowest ratings compared to smaller areas of institutional change.
The European Commission noted that the EU has common rules regarding technical and safety standards, liberalization of the road transport market, rail transport, inland waterways together, air and sea transport. After signing the Association Agreement with the EU, as the authors of the document write, Ukraine made some level of preparation in the field of transport policy, but with limited progress, which was further hampered by the Russian invasion.
In order to successfully move towards the EU, the European Commission recommends that Ukraine in the next year (2024) harmonize and implement the principles of the European Union regarding rail and road transport, in particular by creating a regulatory body in the field of rail transport.
Also, in the specified period, it is recommended to strengthen the administrative capacity for road safety and to create inspection and investigative bodies for the investigation of transport incidents on railway and inland water transport.
The report notes that currently Ukrzaliznytsia remains the only integrated railway company that manages infrastructure and provides carrier services, without financial and organizational separation between infrastructure management and its operation. In practice, the document says, tariffs and infrastructure access conditions are not regulated in any way. In view of this, it is necessary to create a regulator in the field of railway transport.
We will remind you that the demand to create an independent national regulator in the field of transport, which will allow to move to transparent practices of tariff formation, has been discussed for more than a year.
In particular, this was recently emphasized by the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption (NAC) in a study on corruption risks in the activities of JSC "Ukrzaliznytsia".
Businesses and specialized associations also repeatedly insisted on the creation of a body that would carry out state regulation in the transport industry to avoid abuses with uncontrolled indexation of UZ tariffs. Also, the role of NKRT should take over the regulation of segments that will remain monopolized as a result of the expected reform of Ukrzaliznytsia.