Impact on the Railways of Leaving the EU

[Coryton]

Did the EU ever actually order privatisation?

 

We went through a lot of pain with privatisiation in 1994 with the John Major administration, and I seem to recall he admitted several years later that what the EU had actually directed was to split the accounting of track and trains, but that the civil servants had misunderstood what was actually being directed, and thus advised him according to what they thought and not what was actually the case.  Rather like Yes Minister.

 

I find it very hard to believe that rail privatisation was an "accident" due to misunderstanding EU regulations, but even if that were true, I find it inconceivable that by now we wouldn't have privatised the railways anyway.

[phil-b259]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commission_Regulation_(EC)_No._2257/94

 

It required that bananas were "free from deformation or abnormal curvature", so it was a real directive, though an upper and lower radius were not specified to define "abnormal curvature".

 

Indeed but what the press failed to tell everyone was It was the British Government that actually requested the directive in the first place as part of some plan to protect our traditional suppliers in the Caribbean from growers in other parts of the world.

 

When certain newspapers decided to use it as an example of the EC (as it was at the time) gone mad the UK Government were very quick to deny any responsibility for it and join in the condemnation despite documents proving which nation instigated the moves in the first place.

 

Far too many people blame the EU for things that are the result of British ministers / civil servants and they are in for a rude shock when leaving the EU makes very little difference to "excessive regulation"

[phil-b259]

Did the EU ever actually order privatisation?

 

We went through a lot of pain with privatisiation in 1994 with the John Major administration, and I seem to recall he admitted several years later that what the EU had actually directed was to split the accounting of track and trains, but that the civil servants had misunderstood what was actually being directed, and thus advised him according to what they thought and not what was actually the case.  Rather like Yes Minister.

 

This is indeed true - All the EU directives at the time required was financial separation with separate accounts for infrastructure and operations. Both accounts could still be under the same holding company providing suitable arrangements were made for 3rd parties to access the infrastructure under "open access" principles.

 

The right wing of the Conservative party however saw these directives as the perfect opportunity to do what they had been itching to do for decades and sell off the railways to the private sector and that is why the UK went far and beyond what was required by the relevant EU directives in 1994.

 

The bottom line is the UK could well have retained BR as a single organisation and potentially gone down the DB route, where it was encouraged by the Federal Government to buy up overseas companies or apply for the running of concessions across Europe - nothing in the current or proposed EU directives bans this approach.

 

However this is incomputable with the Conservatives approach where the state must not own anything and where smashing former state enterprises up and selling the bits for short term windfall gains has been the policy of every Government they have headed for the past three decades.

 

So ultimately those blaming the EU for railway privatisation are talking rubbish. Privatisation (as with 90% of the other things the leave campaign were blaming the EU for) has far more to do with our own Politicians and the inhabitants of Whitehall and it is downright deceitful to claim otherwise.

[DY444]

If Hitachi wants to break its agreement with the UK Government and pull out of Newton Aycliffe then let it.  It might affect the chances of it winning anymore contracts but that's it's choice.  We'll just give all the work to Bombardier in Derby instead.  Same with Thalys, Siemens et al. 

 

My advice is to ignore all the hysterical wailing and threats from people like Juncker, he's just sore because his power base is under threat.  In the final analysis Germany is the EU power house and normally gets what it wants so listen instead to what Angela Merkel is saying.  She knows that the UK is not an economic basket case like Greece, it is a major financial power and will remain one whatever happens and that a deal is important for both sides.  That means something mutually acceptable will emerge.

[br2975]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commission_Regulation_(EC)_No._2257/94

 

It required that bananas were "free from deformation or abnormal curvature", so it was a real directive, though an upper and lower radius were not specified to define "abnormal curvature".

 

"....The regulation applies to unripened green bananas, and thus to growers and wholesalers rather than retailers....."

.

Was anyone aware of a burgeoning banana growing industry in the UK circa 1995 when this legislation was introduced. ?

.

No, and to the best of my knowledge, there is still no banana growing of any consequence in the UK.

.

There is legislation governing the growing of olives, for olive oil

.

Is there an extensive and  flourishing olive oil industry in the UK ?

 

Next time you are in Tesco, or Asda, take a look at the cucumbers (as an example) on display, and note how those in the box are virtually all the same length, of similar  diameter and circumference, notice how the tangerines are all of similar size...............

 

So why were we concerned about such legislation ?

.

But, those EU countries where such fruits, and vegeatbles are grown, may wish to compete on a level playing field ?

[phil-b259]

"....The regulation applies to unripened green bananas, and thus to growers and wholesalers rather than retailers....."

.

Was anyone aware of a burgeoning banana growing industry in the UK circa 1995 when this legislation was introduced. ?

.

No, and to the best of my knowledge, there is still no banana growing of any consequence in the UK.

.

 

As has already been explained the UK wished to protect its traditional suppliers in the Caribbean from South American imports so proposed this directive to do so. It gained support from Fance I believe for similar reasons

 

It had nothing to do with the UK wanting to grow bananas.

 

Directives relating to olives will most likely have been proposed by the likes of Italy and Greece - although the motivation in that case would obviously relate to domestic growers rather than imports from ex colonial territories.

[Metr0Land]

 

 

My advice is to ignore all the hysterical wailing and threats from people like Juncker, he's just sore because his power base is under threat.  In the final analysis Germany is the EU power house and normally gets what it wants so listen instead to what Angela Merkel is saying.  She knows that the UK is not an economic basket case like Greece, it is a major financial power and will remain one whatever happens and that a deal is important for both sides.  That means something mutually acceptable will emerge.

 

Indeed, I said something similar on another thread.  We are a major customer of German goods and Mutti is under pressure from eg car workers' unions as well as Companies to be able to continue to sell Audi, BMW, Mercs, VW's Bosch, Siemens and a whole lot of other goods to us.   A weak pound does nothing for the bottom line of those companies, and trade barriers will do nothing for their sales here, with the knock-on for German jobs.

[roythebus]

There ought to be an EU Directive on the production of native di**heads as ours seem to be of the most crooked of them all.

 

Bring back the Leyland National bus for all those who want to go back to the good old days of the 1970's!

[The Stationmaster]

Did the EU ever actually order privatisation?

 

We went through a lot of pain with privatisiation in 1994 with the John Major administration, and I seem to recall he admitted several years later that what the EU had actually directed was to split the accounting of track and trains, but that the civil servants had misunderstood what was actually being directed, and thus advised him according to what they thought and not what was actually the case.  Rather like Yes Minister.

 

You are correct.  EU 91/440 (a result of a UK instigated initiative in any case) requires financial separation of infrastructure costs from train operating costs - it does not require privatisation of either.  There is a separate Resolution regarding open access but it effectively is a follow on along the route opened by 91/440.

 

Thus what the vast majority of railwauy administrations in the EU have done is to separate the management of infrastructure and train operations into separate state owned companies and in (I think) all cases open access is managed in a different way from the way it is managed in Britain however the management of international open access is common across all member railways in the UIC.

[phil-b259]

If Hitachi wants to break its agreement with the UK Government and pull out of Newton Aycliffe then let it.  It might affect the chances of it winning anymore contracts but that's it's choice.  We'll just give all the work to Bombardier in Derby instead.  Same with Thalys, Siemens et al. 

 

My advice is to ignore all the hysterical wailing and threats from people like Juncker, he's just sore because his power base is under threat.  In the final analysis Germany is the EU power house and normally gets what it wants so listen instead to what Angela Merkel is saying.  She knows that the UK is not an economic basket case like Greece, it is a major financial power and will remain one whatever happens and that a deal is important for both sides.  That means something mutually acceptable will emerge.

 

That assumes Bombardier remains in Derby too! - Bombardier being a international company with heavy investments in the EU will, like Hitachi be considering their position and are potentially just as likely to up sticks as Hitachi if they feel that the relationship we end up having with the EU is detrimental to their cooperate interests.

 

Of course it could be that someone else - like Caterpillar decides to take over the sites if either Bombardier or Hitachi pulled out as a investment opportunity - but again that depends on how things develop with regard to trading rules because the UKs demand for new trains is unlikely to be sufficient justify keeping such sites going long term.

 

Ultimately, you, nor I, can say how things will go and any 'Leave' supporter who refuses to acknowledge the potential* threat to jobs as a result of the country's decision is very misguided, particularly as the principle of "freedom of movement" is so fundamental to the single market that the likes of Norway still have to embrace it to be in said single market and the overriding message from lots of leave voters is a halt to migration**.

 

*Note 'potential' does not mean 'will'. Even if there is only a 10% chance of a certain situation happening then that situation is no less of a 'potential' outcome than any other, its just a bit less likely to happen than other potential outcomes.

 

** some of it expressed in disgustingly racist terms has to be said :- http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-36633388    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-36634621

[Coryton]

There ought to be an EU Directive on the production of native di**heads as ours seem to be of the most crooked of them all.

 

Bring back the Leyland National bus for all those who want to go back to the good old days of the 1970's!

 

Some of us still commute on Leyland Nationals....they're just on a rail chassis.

[Metr0Land]

 

 

Bring back the Leyland National bus for all those who want to go back to the good old days of the 1970's!

 

 

Don't forget anaglypta wallpaper.  There could be a huge market again for papering over the cracks.

[D854_Tiger]

I believe, apart from a war, nothing will change.

 

 

P.S. Can we choose France.

[Blandford1969]

There is of course n interesting twist developing. Some commentators are suggesting the Bexit pole is a recommendation and it would be down to a PM to invoke it, bringing the possibility this could still be theoretical rather than a reality. What will happen, who knows and only time will tell. What I do know is that the Severn Valley Railway would be over 1.5 million pounds worse off without it.

[62613]

This is indeed true - All the EU directives at the time required was financial separation with separate accounts for infrastructure and operations. Both accounts could still be under the same holding company providing suitable arrangements were made for 3rd parties to access the infrastructure under "open access" principles.

 

The right wing of the Conservative party however saw these directives as the perfect opportunity to do what they had been itching to do for decades and sell off the railways to the private sector and that is why the UK went far and beyond what was required by the relevant EU directives in 1994.

 

The bottom line is the UK could well have retained BR as a single organisation and potentially gone down the DB route, where it was encouraged by the Federal Government to buy up overseas companies or apply for the running of concessions across Europe - nothing in the current or proposed EU directives bans this approach.

 

However this is incomputable with the Conservatives approach where the British state must not own anything and where smashing former state enterprises up and selling the bits for short term windfall gains has been the policy of every Government they have headed for the past three decades.

 

So ultimately those blaming the EU for railway privatisation are talking rubbish. Privatisation (as with 90% of the other things the leave campaign were blaming the EU for) has far more to do with our own Politicians and the inhabitants of Whitehall and it is downright deceitful to claim otherwise.

Corrected!

[roythebus]

What amazes me is that HM Government won't allow state ownership of anything here, yet quite happily allows state-owned companies to operate rail and bus services here (as indeed they have to under EU competition regulations). State-run DB/Arriva; NS, RATP, Abellio spring to mind, all owned by European governments. Has no-one in our government realised that yet?

[Kelly]

We are more than capable of writing our own silly directives;)

 

An example being in the 1950s when the government of the time said that manned military planes would become redundant pretty quickly. This led to a lot of cancelled projects (most notably TSR.2), and along with other factors the dismantling of our leading advantage in this area (at least in some aspects of aviation). Of course it was proven to be utter nonsense, and we had to go to the US for their F-111 Aardvark in place of TSR.2, which they then cancelled, and then we got Phantoms  instead a bit later.

[Kelly]

Not entirely true. France didn't nationalise its railways until 1938 and it came as something of a surprise. France also had relatively little duplication of routes because, from very early on,  the network was determined by the state (usually after discussion with existing or potential railway companies) and then awarded as concessions. For the national network those concessions were regional and the compamies weren't supposed to be in competition. Though the railways were run by the companies the infrastructure up to the ballast was always owned by the state (or by the Départements in the case of the French equivalent of light railways) which is why lines aren't usually dismantled until some years after they have closed. 

 

Ironically it was the frequent duplication of railways built by private companies in Britain that gave the railways a built in level of redundancy with distinct strategic advantages during the second world war in their ability to absorb damage by air raids and, with some upgrading and new junctions, to handle new traffic flows such as those during the build up to D-Day.  By contrast it was far easier for a combination of air raids and resistance activitiy to cripple the French network sufficiently to slow down German response to the allied invasion. 

 

I don't know this for sure but I think a similar situation in N. America was strategically important for handling the massive flows of men and material during WW2.

 

Another aspect during WW2 was that Hitler and the Nazi party in general disregarded rail transport as important and saw road transport as much more important (the disaster of the Russian campaign a prime example, with wrong trains and wrong gauge! and ill-prepared personnel, another being when they took over Minsk and sent the timetable printers off to the camps). The german network was directly controlled by the military during the war too, rather than people who knew how to run a railway, in contrast to how the British railway network was managed, with the railway companies still effectively operating and the MOS giving final say on new developments etc.

[DavidB-AU]

Back on topic...

Rail industry responds to 'Brexit'

http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/news/europe/single-view/view/rail-industry-responds-to-brexit.html

 

The short version is Alstom and Siemens have said they will stay.

 

Cheers

David

[Zomboid]

I'd be surprised if any major decisions of that nature were made until the shape of our new relationship with the EU and other major trading partners is determined.

[PhilH]

I'd be surprised if any major decisions of that nature were made until the shape of our new relationship with the EU and other major trading partners is determined.

 

Apparently we're going to intensify our co-operation with them now we've left

 

'At the same time, Boris Johnson, widely seen as the most likely successor to Prime Minister David Cameron, has said the UK will continue to "intensify" co-operation with the EU following the country's vote to leave.'

[PhilJ W]

What amazes me is that HM Government won't allow state ownership of anything here, yet quite happily allows state-owned companies to operate rail and bus services here (as indeed they have to under EU competition regulations). State-run DB/Arriva; NS, RATP, Abellio spring to mind, all owned by European governments. Has no-one in our government realised that yet?

They effectively blocked BR from tendering.

[phil-b259]

What amazes me is that HM Government won't allow state ownership of anything here, yet quite happily allows state-owned companies to operate rail and bus services here (as indeed they have to under EU competition regulations). State-run DB/Arriva; NS, RATP, Abellio spring to mind, all owned by European governments. Has no-one in our government realised that yet?

 

Of course they have realised! - why do you think the EU has been pushing through various railway 'liberalisation' packages over the past two decades despite strong opposition from the likes of France?

 

Despite what the anti-EU brigade claim, the Conservatives have actually been pretty sucessfull in installing their liberalising, pro privatisation friends inside EUs policy bodies precisely because they wanted to force the other member states to adopt the "the free market is King" mentality the are wedded to in the UK. The Irony is that we are leaving just as one of their key goals (forced competitive tendering for all Government procured rail services in member states) looks like it will come to pass.

 

The fact that DB is still (German) state owned is unfortunate in Conservative thinking, but in a true free market such bodies cannot be excluded from the bidding process, particularly if it increases the number of bidders and thus the amount of competition - from which we are told everybody (be they you shopping for bread, mobile phones, insurance or Government shopping for rail franchise operators) benefit from. In any case the Conservatives also no doubt justify it by saying that if the German Government wishes to risk its taxpayers money in such an enterprise more fool them. 

[Coryton]

What amazes me is that HM Government won't allow state ownership of anything here, yet quite happily allows state-owned companies to operate rail and bus services here (as indeed they have to under EU competition regulations). State-run DB/Arriva; NS, RATP, Abellio spring to mind, all owned by European governments. Has no-one in our government realised that yet?

 

I think it's a bit more subtle than that.

 

The "state-run" (or at least state-owned) companies operate franchises in the same commercial manner as any other company. They have to compete to win franchises, and if they miss targets they can in principle have the franchise taken away from them. This is very different from a state-run company which has no threat to its existence. DB is not running trains in the UK in the same way that BR did.

 

Of course BR could (as it wanted to) have been allowed to bid for franchises, but this wasn't permitted. This seems harder to justify - if BR could prove itself by becoming the best bidder, then why not? And if this had happened, it's quite likely it would still be here running franchises in the UK and no doubt abroad.

 

I suspect the reason that this wasn't allowed was ideology. But I can think of some more practical reasons. Perhaps the view was that commercial organisations (bus companies) would do better than BR had but only if there were former BR managers to recruit for their management teams?

 

You could also argue that one of the advantages of franchises is moving risk away from the government. Under a BR managed franchise, this wouldn't happen. But we shouldn't care whether the risk falls on a group of shareholders or someone else's government...

 

Of course in practise there's not much risk because it seems to be quite easy to walk away from a franchise. And the government of the UK is a large enough organisation to handle considerable risk, I would have thought.

 

Anyway I'm not in favour of the current structure but I don't think that letting DB, SNCF etc. bid for franchises is as daft as it might seem.

 

Incidentally, I've read that the new mayor of London is considering raising money by getting TfL to bid for rail franchises in the UK and abroad...

 

Edited to add: written before the last two posts came in. I think we are all in agreement...

[phil-b259]

They effectively blocked BR from tendering.

 

Erm, BR had ceased to exist by the time franchising in the rest of Europe finally started to happen so it wasn't a case that they blocked BR from tendering - the Conservative Government comprehensively dismantled BR so it couldn't tender for bidding for overseas franchises / contracts