Proposition 54K3413

Projet de loi portant assentiment à l'Accord de coopération du 5 octobre 2018 entre l'État fédéral, la Région Flamande, la Région Wallonne et la Région de Bruxelles-Capitale relatif au financement des infrastructures ferroviaires stratégiques.

General information ¶

Submitted by

MR Michel Ⅱ

Submission date

Dec. 13, 2018

Official page

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Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

financing transport and mobility cooperation agreement transport infrastructure rail transport

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

Groen CD&V Vooruit Ecolo LE PS | SP DéFI Open Vld N-VA MR PVDA | PTB PP

Abstained from voting

∉ VB

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Discussion ¶

Jan. 31, 2019 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

Mr. Speaker, you allow me to summarize in this Chamber, the committee report on an important text of law aiming at a parliamentary ratification of the cooperation agreement that the Infrastructure Committee, chaired by Mrs. Lalieux, examined on January 16 last.

We are therefore in the framework of a ratification of a cooperation agreement that concretizes the famous “virtuous billion” that will allow to restart and finish – hopefully – the work of the RER, but also to meet the regional priorities in rail transport.

Dear colleagues, you will allow me to summarize the dynamic and rich debates that took place in your committee. Minister Bellot initiated this text of cooperation agreement which he negotiated with his colleagues from the Flemish Region, Mr. Weyts, from the Walloon Region, Mr. Di Antonio and from the Brussels-Capital Region, Mr. Smet. This negotiation on a policy as important as that of mobility was a real turn of force for the minister.

The previous cooperation agreement, as you recalled in the presentation, dates from 2001 and concerned the RER. He did not allow, since the multiannual plan ended in 2012, to complete the work of the RER. This House had then observed, during this legislature, the cessation of the work of the RER. That same Chamber had requested an audit to the Court of Auditors. I will talk again. This audit was very important and focused on the state of progress of the RER. It also allowed, through the new cooperation agreement, to change a number of arrangements.

It is unnecessary to recall the importance of RER and regional priorities with regard to the train. This cooperation agreement makes it possible to sustain the billion loan of the federal state that the minister calls “virtuous”. We dare to believe it.

This virtuous loan is a loan that aims, on the one hand, to restart and complete the RER work and, in particular, the last lines that are to be completed (lines 124 and 161) and, on the other hand, to respond to regional requests for rail investment.

I emphasize here the fact that, as regards the RER, the cooperation agreement allows to validate the Walloon decision to use the Gosselies prefinancing and the Louvain-la-Neuve prefinancing relic to make them available for the RER work, but also allows, in the absence of a management contract, the SNCB and especially Infrabel to dispose of this money and to implement it with the effective resumption of the RER work.

Mr. Minister, you have drawn up a text of cooperation agreement that is based on new arrangements implemented by the Sixth State Reform. You have completed the general cooperation agreement that you had negotiated with the Regions, which is quite rare and difficult in our federal state, and you have made sure that it can be applied through cooperation agreements or rather implementation agreements that they, will not be ratified by parliaments. It is a matter of very complex modalities, which I will not summarize here, Mr. Miller, because it would take too much time, of agreements that are sometimes bilateral, trilateral or multilateral. Sometimes it feels like it’s part of international politics. But no, this is Belgium, Mr. Minister.

So you negotiated as a diplomat with the different Regions and you made sure that these negotiations ended just before Christmas. You managed to resume negotiations with Brussels-capital, which had not yet signed the cooperation agreement, which was ultimately done for the benefit of the entire RER project.

I would also say that, as part of the work carried out, you explained the modification of the key 60/40, following the proposal of the Court of Auditors who had found that an annual application had resulted in the delay in the work.

The more flexible application over several years with a validation process would also allow for more flexibility. Finally, you also provided in the cooperation agreement that from Article 3, you can ensure the maintenance of the entire network in particular for low-population lines without any kilometre of railway necessary for traffic being removed. This is a very important part of the cooperation agreement.

Then, in the different steps that you have had to follow in order to make the entire cooperation agreement adopted, it must be cited: the Conciliation Committee - which adopted this cooperation agreement in first and second reading -, the Executive Committee of Ministers of Mobility (CEMM) - which met several times and validated -, the State Council and, finally, the Conciliation Committee which was able, in the last analysis, to adopt this text before it arrives before these committees and the plenary session of the Parliament.

In the general discussion, the various groups supported your cooperation agreement. Ms. De Coninck regretted the lack of rail regionalization and also raised a number of questions on the co-financing of the Regions, on the capacity of the federal state in current affairs to implement the cooperation agreement. Mr. Laurent Devin welcomed, on behalf of the Socialist Group, the implementation of the RER and the use of this virtuous billion for the benefit of the integration of the RER in a general process of mobility. Mr. Jean-Jaques Flahaux, on the same line as Mr. Devin (which may have contributed to this unanimity of views because you were really on the same line that day), insisted on the very significant increase in the number of travellers, more than 3% additional shares. Mr Van den Bergh also raised a number of questions and emphasized in particular the importance of Article 3 on the protection of rural areas. Ms. Ljinen for the Open Vld also welcomed the implementation of the RER. I myself, on behalf of the Ecolo-Groen group, have asked you a number of questions regarding the application during the duration of this cooperation agreement.

In your answers – and this is important for parliamentary work – you have, Mr. Minister, been able to clarify a number of elements: the fact, on the one hand, that the amounts were already available and that the work could therefore resume, and, on the other hand, that the responsibility for borrowing belongs to the federal state and, in particular, that it is from the federal state that the available money will be made available there.

You also re-explained the key of evolutionary regional distribution – of which I spoke earlier – the maintenance of the railway network, the information during the duration of the works and the need to involve the steering committee provided in the cooperation agreement. All this will also need to be followed by a new adaptation of the Cooperation Agreement on the study of mobility, in particular multimodal, which is a pivotal element.

It is therefore on the basis of all these clarifications, these discussions, and after this rich debate, that your committee, under the presidency of Mrs. Lalieux, adopted this text unanimously – this is quite rare.

I wanted to finish with a little free contribution from the rapporteur, quoting Mark Twain: “They didn’t know it was impossible, so they did it.” I thank you.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, dear colleagues, the text we are about to vote on, which concerns the completion of the RER – which we have been waiting for years – as well as the work on strategic railway infrastructures, appears to us as a blessing.

As a reminder, as early as 2009, the Court of Auditors had emphasized that successive ministers knew that the RER would suffer from a lack of funding. It is in response to this fact that the Council of Ministers of 31 March 2017 decided, on your proposal, on key provisions for rail, through the provision of one billion euros of current resources for the completion of RER infrastructure projects as provided for in this Agreement and for the construction of other strategic rail infrastructures. The vote on this text will enable them to concretize and ensure a continuity of this will. I would like to use this to thank Marcel Cheron for his report, both comprehensive and objective.

I will not go into details, but it is worth emphasizing, for example, that the application of the 60/40 key will be calculated in a multiannual manner, thus preventing any potential postponement in the future ...

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I said, therefore, that in this way, any potential delay in the work would be avoided.

From the discussions in the Infrastructure Committee there is a common willingness to join this project. As previously stated, unanimous agreement has been reached. This demonstrates that your initiative, Mr. Minister, to revive the Ministerial Committee of Ministers of Mobility demonstrates the importance of coordination, cooperation and synchronization between them. While the discussions were hardly easy – that’s the least that can be said – you made possible an essential agreement to lead to more efficient mobility and railway network.

The five-year appropriations allocated to SNCB and Infrabel amount to €13.8 billion, or approximately €2.8 billion per year. At the beginning of the legislature, the government had asked companies to make 1.2 billion savings, spread over the five years of the legislature.

These savings were achieved while business productivity improved without compromising supply – quite the opposite: 72 additional trains in and around Brussels were set up in December 2016. In addition, during the December 2017 transport plan, the supply was further increased by 5.1%.

Mr. Minister, the decisions you made are reflected in an increase in the number of travellers by 3.6% in 2017 and 3.7% in 2018; these increases have been unprecedented for fifteen years.

In addition, the first effects of the modernization of the operation of the companies SNCB and Infrabel are illustrated in the operating accounts of the two companies, which deliver profit margins for the very first time since their split. You have requested that these margins be devoted to new services for the benefit of travellers.

Your action marks a real turning point in mobility, with a growing share of rail transport. The numbers are here. I am convinced that the unlocking of this virtuous billion, added to the 4.3 billion investments planned for the legislature, is a response to the height of climate challenges of mobility and efficiency.

Not later than yesterday, a party chairwoman, speaking on a public channel, indicated that the ideal would be an investment of one billion a year for the SNCB. This goal has already been exceeded. Especially since Ms. Dutordoir and Mr. Lallemand indicated, fifteen days ago in commission, not being able to spend higher amounts than what was granted to them.

Note that an essential element is reflected in this cooperation agreement. The Parties undertake to ensure the maintenance of the entire network, in particular areas with low density of population, without any kilometers of railway necessary for traffic being removed.

I can also say that there are also projects for ⁇ 100 km.

Mr. Minister, you thus give the guarantee to the rural world that it is fully the object of your attention, as well as the large agglomerations.

Dear colleagues, Dear President of the Commission, after this cooperation agreement and thanks to the virtuous billions, the railway network will experience an extension of new routes. In addition, I would like to recall that in the last three years, the minister has opened six new stations, without closing any of them, demonstrating once again that the information evoked by the same party chairman yesterday was wrong.

This decision reflects the commitment of the federal government to make mobility, and ⁇ railway mobility, one of its priorities. This government thus concrete the will of many citizens to organize our mobility in a different way, that is, in a more sustainable and therefore more railway way. I am delighted that together, and with the widest possible majority, we can reach this agreement, thanking you, Mr. Minister, for the implementation of this law of cooperation.

To conclude on a slightly lighter note, I would like to paraphrase a chronicle that appeared in a major daily newspaper this morning. This is Free Belgium. A journalist presented this morning the mobility as the black spot of the feeling of the Belgians. She continued wondering if this means that François Bellot is the Minister of National Happiness. This project is undoubtedly a beginning of response.

Mr. Speaker, I found the summary of the rapporteur and eminent colleague Marcel Cheron quite complete. Therefore, I will not add anything on the substance, except to emphasize the importance of this matter.

Mr. Flahaux, I can assure you that I have been listening to you for four years. When you are a commission chairman, you can’t get up, you can’t talk, for hours and hours. Don’t worry, I know your speech. I am always attentive to all the speeches of all parliamentarians in my committee.

I would reassure the other members. The RER does not apply to rural areas. We will not go until then, Mr. Flahaux. I had the impression that it was Mr. Bellot’s cygne song, but I imagine that it will still remain a few months, until the end of this resigning government, and ⁇ long after. We do not know the future.

As Mandela would say, to answer Mr. Cheron – it is my dear colleague Mr. Delizée who blasted it to me: “It always seems impossible until it is done.”

Mr. Speaker, I might like to make a clarification to Mrs. Lalieux. The cooperation agreement does not only concern the RER. It covers all financing. Article 3 refers to rural areas. Why did we include it here? I proposed this, and it was accepted by the Regions, because a cooperation agreement has a much greater force than any other act. A management contract can be revised by avenant the following year. During the entire duration of the implementation of the cooperation agreement, it shall be impossible, in Belgium, to dismantle a single meter of operated railway line.

I also draw your attention to the fact that at the end of the cooperation agreement, and in the strategic plan, it is planned to add 100 kilometers of new roads to the existing roads. I think that since the 1980s, with the restructuring of the railway that we know, this is the first time that 100 kilometers of roads will be added to the existing network.

This will take place mainly around Brussels, but not only; in the north and south of the country as well. For example, next week works will begin all south of Belgium, i.e. at the most distant distance from Brussels. In addition, two months ago began important work on the part of Hamont-Weert where there is also a question of doubling the roads.

This is the meaning of the article that was inserted. It may be out of the framework of the RER design, but we wanted to give guarantees as to the integrity of the currently existing railway network, guarantees that will permanently cut off the veils of some who want to reduce the existing network here and there.