Railway
legislation: to be amended or completely revised?
The
railway operator and NRIC continue to incur losses and accumulate debts, as
pointed out in the monitoring report of the European Commission as of May
2006. This clearly shows that the
restructuring process has not reached its ultimate goal – the rehabilitation of
the sector – as pointed out by Prof. Iordan Mirchev, Chairman of the Parliamentary transport
commission, during the regular meeting of the commission on 13th July, when he
presented his concept on a new Railway Act. The presentation was attended by
the Minister of Transport, Petar Mutafchiev,
representatives of the Executive Agency “Railway Administration”, BDZ EAD,
NRIC, scientific circles, branch and trade union organisations,
large customers and forwarders.
As was
outlined by Iordan Mirchev,
our national railway legislation has hitherto given more weight to the legal
requirements in the context of EU accession, while less attention was given to
issues like service quality, development, market positions and financial
stability. According to him, there are a number of omissions in the current,
“revised” draft-Act, which was validated by the Council of Ministers at one of
their latest meetings. For this reason the professor appealed for a new Railway
Act.
In his
turn, Minister Mutafchiev stated that “In spite of
any critical remarks, I would like to recall the fact that