The legal basis for shaping the railway transport services market is Council Directive 91/440/EEC of 29 July 1991 on the development of the Community’s railways, as well as two subsequent directives of 19 June 1995 – No. 95/18/EC on the licensing of railway undertakings and No. 95/19/EC on the allocation of railway infrastructure capacity and the levying of charges for the use of railway infrastructure.
The main objective of Directive 91/440/EEC is to separate the management of railway infrastructure from the provision of transport services, to ensure access to railway infrastructure and the independence of railway undertaking management, with a view to improving their financial situation. This directive therefore created the legal basis for the liberalization of the railway transport services market in the member states of the European Communities (EC). Directive 95/18/EC, on the other hand, mainly concerned the issuing of licenses, their validity period, and amendments in the context of the provisions of Article 10 of Directive 91/440/EEC. Directive 95/19/EC regulated the allocation of railway infrastructure capacity, taking into account services provided in the public interest (public service), the levying of charges depending on the nature of the service, the time of the service, the situation on the transport market, and the type and quality of the infrastructure. These objectives became binding for Poland after the establishment – on the basis of the Europe Agreement – of an association between the Republic of Poland and the European Communities and their member states, drawn up in Brussels on 16 December 1991. The decisions of the European Communities regarding railway transport were incorporated in Poland into the Act of 27 June 1997 on Railway Transport (including issues of operation of railway lines and rail vehicles, financing of railway transport, licensing of railway transport, regulation and technical supervision in railway transport, and railway traffic safety). Through the licensing of economic activity in railway transport, i.e., the management of railway lines and the performance of railway transport, various economic entities were granted access to railway transport. Subsequently, bearing in mind the need to adapt the structure of the state-owned enterprise “Polskie Koleje Państwowe” (Polish State Railways) to the requirements of EU directives and the Act on Railway Transport, the Sejm of the Republic of Poland passed the Act on the commercialization, restructuring, and privatization of the “Polskie Koleje Państwowe” enterprise on 8 September 2000. As a result, the unified PKP enterprise was divided in the second half of 2001 into many different commercial law companies, including transport companies (passenger, freight) and a company managing railway lines.
Amendments to the aforementioned EC directives were made in February 2001 by subsequent directives, referred to as the “first railway package” of EU directives. This package includes four directives:
– No. 2001/12/EC amending Directive 91/440/EEC,
– No. 2001/13/EC amending Directive 95/18/EC,
– No. 2001/14/EC replacing Directive 95/19/EC,
and a new one – No. 2001/16/EC of 19 March 2001 on the interoperability of the trans-European conventional rail system.
The provisions of these directives became the basis for opening the railway transport services market as early as 15 March 2003 on a network of 50,000 km of railway lines in EU member states and associated countries. This network, known as the Trans-European Rail Freight Network (TERFN), included in Poland, among others, lines covered by the AGTC European Agreement:
– C-E 20 Kunowice (state border) – Poznań – Warsaw – Terespol (state border),
– C-E 30 Bielawa Dolna (state border) – Węgliniec – Wrocław – Katowice – Kraków – Przemyśl – Medyka (state border),
– C-E 59 Świnoujście – Szczecin Dąbie – Kostrzyn – Zielona Góra – Wrocław – Opole – Racibórz – Chałupki (state border),
– C-E 65 Gdynia – Tczew – Bydgoszcz / Warsaw – Katowice – Zebrzydowice (state border),
for the purpose of performing international freight transport (a total of over 4,000 km). The action program of the “White Paper – European transport policy for 2010: time to decide” provided for the implementation of another package of measures for the railway sector to accelerate, among other things, the liberalization of the railway transport services market in Europe, ensuring a high level of railway network safety. The “second railway package,” adopted on 29 April 2004, includes the following directives:
– No. 2004/49/EC on safety on the Community’s railways and amending Council Directive 95/18/EC on the licensing of railway undertakings and Directive 2001/14/EC on the allocation of railway infrastructure capacity and the levying of charges for the use of railway infrastructure and safety certification,
– No. 2004/50/EC amending Council Directive 96/48/EC on the interoperability of the trans-European high-speed rail system and Directive 2001/16/EC on the interoperability of the trans-European conventional rail system,
– No. 2004/51/EC, amending Directive 91/440/EEC.