BELGIUM: Privatised freight operator Lineas has called for Belgium’s national and regional governments to take five steps which it says are needed to improve the competitiveness of rail freight and help address road congestion, climate change and the energy transition.
These are:
- Competitive fairness: the distortion of competition by state-owned competitors should be addressed, by stopping illegal state aid — including cross-subsidy from public holding structures and country-specific subsidies oriented towards state-owned actors;
- Reciprocity in facility access: eliminate the distortion of competition created by granting unlimited access to yards in Antwerpen while there is no reciprocity on similar facilities in Germany, the Netherlands and France;
- Balanced support: Lineas recommends reallocating support for road transport to rail infrastructure and safety projects. It says rail is already the safest mode and the extra costs of ERTMS cannot be passed on to clients. The company says it is already at a disadvantage because Belgium’s ERTMS implementation deadline of 2025 is five years earlier than neighbouring countries;
- Infrastructure investment: Lineas says implementation of infrastructure manager Infrabel’s multi-year investment plan and the optimisation of capacity allocation between passenger and freight is essential to improve the use of rail infrastructure, along with harmonising local operating rules, in particular at ports;
- Multimodal transport promotion: Lineas would like to see incentives for road transport companies to adopt multimodal freight, improving the integration and efficiency of all modes.
Announcing its policy ambitions on August 19, Lineas said it had halved its losses in 2023, and was optimistic about approaching break-even in 2024. It expected to be profitable in 2025.
