Title: EU Railway Policy‐Making: On Track?, by H.Dyrhauge (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, ISBN 9781137274489); ix+181pp, £55.00 hb.
Abstract: Railways have played an important role in history with various significant impacts on society. Although railways were first seen as a response to economic growth and industrial innovation, primarily providing transportation of goods and later facilitating personal mobility, rail transport has become a substantial part of modern society. Railways have political and economic implications, but also social and environmental impacts, which influence the development of this transportation mode over time. Helene Dyrhauge provides a comprehensive overview of the development of railway policy-making in the EU. She starts by effectively describing the various ways how national railway policies have evolved resulting in strong policy paths. She smoothly leads the reader through the various phases the railways went through, combining the historical and rational choice institutionalism that provides a firm basis for understanding the challenges the EU has faced concerning the regulation of railways. The book then describes the development of the regulatory framework for railways in the EU and as to how policy-makers at EU level, the Member States, industry, trade unions and other actors have shaped this development. Emphasis is given to the Commission's initiatives for market opening, which have proven successful in other transportation modes, such as air and road transport, and in other network industries, like energy. It gives an interesting insight into how the various legislative initiatives have evolved with the different interests of the three EU institutions involved in the legislative process: the Commission, the European Parliament and the Council. In parallel, the book describes in detail the changes occurring in the railway sector in practice as a consequence of gradual market liberalisation which has been an important input for shaping policy-making. The book also provides a profound analysis of other aspects of the rail transport that have had a significant influence on EU policy-making, such as state aid, environmental considerations and the trans-European network for railways. As technical harmonization of the various technical solutions used for railways in the EU Member States and maintaining a high level of safety are also challenges and thereby form an important part of EU policy-making, these aspects deserved further analysis by Dyrhauge. Overall, the book is significant in helping us better understand the rail sector and the challenges the EU has faced in making railways a more effective and competitive sector, which is inevitable for achieving a Single European Transport Area.
Publication Year: 2015
Publication Date: 2015-02-09
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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