Proposition 53K1758

Projet de loi modifiant la loi du 19 décembre 2006 relative à la sécurité d'exploitation ferroviaire en vue d'instaurer des amendes administratives.

General information ¶

Authors

CD&V Jef Van den Bergh
Ecolo Ronny Balcaen
LE Christophe Bastin
MR Valérie De Bue
N-VA Steven Vandeput
Open Vld Ine Somers
PS | SP Linda Musin
Vooruit David Geerts

Submission date

Sept. 23, 2011

Official page

Visit

Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

EC Directive fine rail network transport safety rail transport

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

Groen CD&V Vooruit Ecolo LE PS | SP ∉ Open Vld N-VA LDD MR VB

Contact form ¶

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Discussion ¶

Nov. 17, 2011 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

Mr. Speaker, I will make a wise decision by proposing you to refer to the written report.

All my congratulations, Mr Dufrane!

Ladies and gentlemen, I will be very brief. This bill amends the Law of 19 December 2006 on railway safety. In criminal law, the maximum fine is raised. A system of administrative fines is also introduced. It is a very important signal that our recommendations are being followed by the Parliament and more specifically by the Special Committee on Railway Safety.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to explain what the present bill is about.

As colleague Somers has already cited, with this proposal we want to translate into legislation one of the recommendations of the special committee Railway Safety established following the incident in Buizingen. Indeed, one of the conclusions of that special committee concerned the functioning of the security authority, the DVIS. According to the conclusions of the report, the DVIS, which is responsible for monitoring railway safety, was insufficiently developed and had insufficient instruments to properly carry out its task. The present bill aims to remedy this and give the DVIS new instruments to act effectively.

In fact, at present, DVIS has only the possibility to withdraw the certificate or authorisation of the infrastructure manager or the railway undertaking, a sanction which is often disproportionate to the deficiencies identified and therefore never used. This bill gives the DVIS the possibility to impose an administrative sanction in the event of an infringement. The bill therefore provides for any possible breach of the safety rules, a specific fine amount. It is actually a bit similar to the classification of traffic offences on the road. A number of categories are introduced, of first, second and third degree, depending on the risk behavior involved in the infringement.

If railway undertakings or infrastructure managers do not comply with the rules, they will be subject to appropriate penalties, depending on the extent to which the infringement endangers the lives of passengers and/or staff. I think, for example, of concrete problems such as the signalling passes or the case where last year a number of times someone without a license was driving a train. Appropriate punishment is essential at this time.

In line with the great consensus in the conclusions and recommendations of the special committee Railway Safety, this was also unanimously approved in the committee. I would like to thank all colleagues for the constructive treatment of this bill.

Mr. Speaker, like my colleagues, I would like to emphasize this important recommendation of the Rail Safety Committee and say how I look forward to seeing its vote take place today, because it is going in the right direction. And compared to the 109 recommendations, this was one of the main ones to get started very quickly.

Mr. Speaker, I join with all the members of my group to welcome the unanimity found in this proposal of law on the safety of railway operation in order to impose administrative fines.

This text offers a new perspective on the context of railway safety by determining the type of action that can be sanctioned from now on. I like to think that all the arrangements result in a mechanism that is both balanced and flexible.

The other great quality of the text is its complementarity with what already exists in the matter. This is an additional tool made available to the safety authority, which will be able to administratively punish by fines the violations of railway safety in the broad sense of the term.

Mr. Speaker, a few words to congratulate me, like the other colleagues, on the unanimity of this proposal, which will allow the implementation of a recommendation of the Special Committee on Rail Safety, which is also a recommendation of the European Railway Agency.

The National Safety Authority will therefore be empowered to impose administrative fines where, nowadays, only the withdrawal of the safety certificate of railway undertakings or the safety approval of the infrastructure manager was possible, and this in case of breach of the safety requirements. In other words, it was a maximistic option that could hardly be implemented.

The National Safety Authority will therefore, tomorrow, be equipped with the necessary tools to better ensure railway safety; this is the goal at its level. It remains Mr. The Secretary of State stressed this in a committee, to allow a significant part of the scope of this text to be transcribed by the publication of a royal decree. We will pay attention to this, as we will be ⁇ vigilant with regard to the correct allocation of the budget fund, which must enable the functioning of this security authority.

With the vote on this text, Mr. Speaker, Dear colleagues, with the hearing of the CEOs of the SNCB Group on the Security Master Plan, we continue to implement the recommendations of the Buizingen Commission.

Of the 109 proposals, many are still under construction. Let us not delay implementing them or ensuring that they are effectively implemented by the various field actors. And I obviously trust the chairman of our monitoring committee to ensure that this is done fairly quickly.