This consultation complements the targeted consultation with national authorities and stakeholders that focuses on the development of pan-European security measures and associated functional requirements. All consultation results will feed into the impact assessment prepared by the Commission, which will be used to assess whether or not to make proposals in this field.

View the questionnaire
https://ec.europa.eu/eusurvey/runner/railsecurity

Additional information

What is this initiative about?
This initiative aims to tackle the increasing risk of harm to rail passengers due to terrorist attacks. Given the number of stakeholders who have to act to prevent or react to terrorist incidents, the difference in the perception of risks across the Member States and the openness and interconnectivity of the rail network, the coordination at European level is often very challenging, and can lead to an insufficient level of protection across the EU. The majority of Member States largely view their railway networks as a domestic issue and have a different approach to securing them leading to differences in measure and approaches. This by extension includes the security of international passenger railway services where Member States undertake ad-hoc bilateral discussions and agreements with neighbouring States concerning cross border railway services. However this has allowed gaps to develop in coordination on security matters.

The increasing development of new high speed trans-European rail corridors and the liberalisation of the rail sector, which is a key element in the creation of a single European railway area and contributes more generally to the deepening of the single market, may further increase the vulnerability to security threats over the coming years if action is not taken. Individual Member State initiatives to increase security on specific rail services without coordination with the EU and other States in some cases could be perceived to have a discriminatory effect on some operators.

The Commission therefore envisages addressing the security of international passenger railway services through the implementation of a common approach to security risk assessment and the identification and implementation of appropriate and proportionate security measures which are subject to a formalised systematic EU-wide coordination mechanism.

More information on this initiative can be found in the Inception Impact Assessment: https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/initiatives/ares-2017-60...