On 29 March 2017, the United Kingdom submitted the notification of its intention to withdraw from the Union pursuant to Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union. The Treaties will cease to apply to the United Kingdom from the date of entry into force of a withdrawal agreement or failing that, two years after that notification, namely from 30 March 2019, unless the European Council, in agreement with the United Kingdom, unanimously decides to extend that period.
(2)
In the area of rail transport, the impact of the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the Union on certificates and authorisations can be remedied by the operators concerned, through various measures. Those measures include operators establishing themselves in one of the remaining Member States and obtaining appropriate licences and certificates there.
(3)
Specific agreements, as provided for in Article 14 of Directive 2012/34/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council (2), would be necessary to address issues directly concerning cross border rail services and infrastructure, thereby ensuring continuity of such services and minimising disruption. In accordance with that Directive, such agreements would also ensure reciprocal treatment for Union undertakings and undertakings established in the United Kingdom using cross border infrastructure.
(4)
The conclusion of such agreements between the Member States concerned and the United Kingdom is only possible after the United Kingdom becomes a third country. In particular, the application of Union safety rules to the Channel tunnel is currently conferred upon an Intergovernmental Commission, set up under the Treaty of Canterbury signed on 12 February 1986, which in the safety field benefits from the advice of the Channel Tunnel Safety Authority. The system established by that Treaty would have to be adapted taking into account the status of the United Kingdom as a third country. In particular, the responsibility for the part of the Channel tunnel on the French territory should be under the sole control of a competent authority as defined in Article 3(7) of Directive (EU) 2016/798 of the European Parliament and of the Council (3), in order to ensure that Union law is applied as such to that part of the tunnel. That competent authority could however, with a view to discharging its tasks in the best possible way and having regard to the common features of the tunnel on either side of the border and in order to facilitate consistency of decisions, take account of the opinions of a binational body established under an agreement between the two countries, such as the Channel Tunnel Safety Authority established by the Treaty of Canterbury, which advises the Intergovernmental Commission, or develop other means to cooperate with the authorities responsible for the part of the tunnel on UK territory.
(5)
The measures in this Regulation are conditional on safety standards and procedures, requirements for access to operating as a railway undertaking, and requirements for driving a train, which are identical to Union requirements being applied to the infrastructure which is used for the purposes of ensuring cross-border rail connectivity with the United Kingdom as well as to undertakings operating and drivers driving trains on that infrastructure.
(6)
In order to allow parties concerned to enter into the necessary agreements and to take any other measures required to avoid disruptions, taking into account the status of the United Kingdom as a third country, it is necessary to extend the validity of certain certificates, authorisations and licences.
(7)
The duration of such extension of the validity of certificates, authorisations and licences should be limited in time to what is strictly necessary in order to enable the Members States concerned to take those necessary steps, in accordance with the provisions set out in Directive 2004/49/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council (4), Directive 2007/59/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council (5) and Directive 2012/34/EU.
(8)
To avoid major disruption of the cross- border rail services with the United Kingdom, it is also essential that the rail operators and the national authorities take the required measures speedily to ensure that certificates, authorisations and licences falling under this Regulation are issued in good time before this Regulation ceases to apply, and that other certificates, autorisations and licences required to operate on Union territory are issued before the date of the United Kingdom's withdrawal.
(9)
In order to ensure uniform conditions for the implementation of this Regulation, implementing powers should be conferred on the Commission as regards the withdrawal of the benefit conferred on holders of the certificates, authorisations and licences, where compliance with the Union requirements is not ensured. Those powers should be exercised in accordance with Regulation (EU) No 182/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council (6). The examination procedure should be used for the adoption of those measures, given their potential impact on railway safety. The Commission should adopt immediately applicable implementing acts where, in duly justified cases, imperative grounds of urgency so require.
(10)
In view of the urgency entailed by the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the Union, it is appropriate to provide for an exception to the eight-week period referred to in Article 4 of Protocol No 1 on the role of national Parliaments in the Union, annexed to the Treaty on European Union, to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and the Treaty establishing the European Atomic Energy Community.
(11)
Since the objective of this Regulation, namely to lay down provisional measures on certain aspects of railway safety and connectivity with regard to the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the Union, in the event of the absence of a withdrawal agreement, cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States but can rather, by reason of its scale and effects, be better achieved at Union level, the Union may adopt measures, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity as set out in Article 5 of the Treaty on European Union. In accordance with the principle of proportionality as set out in that Article, this Regulation does not go beyond what is necessary in order to achieve that objective.
(12)
The provisions of this Regulation should enter into force as a matter of urgency and should apply from the day following that on which the Treaties cease to apply to the United Kingdom unless a withdrawal agreement concluded with the United Kingdom has entered into force by that date,
