Directive (EU) 2016/798 of the European Parliament and of the Council (3) requires each Member State to establish a national safety authority to be entrusted with the tasks specified in relation to railway safety. In accordance with that Directive, a national safety authority may be a body established unilaterally by the Member State concerned or, alternatively, a body entrusted by several Member States with those tasks in order to ensure a unified safety regime.
(2)
The Treaty between France and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland concerning the Construction and Operation by Private Concessionaires of a Channel Fixed Link, signed at Canterbury on 12 February 1986 (‘the Treaty of Canterbury’), established an Intergovernmental Commission to supervise all matters concerning the construction and operation of the Channel Fixed Link (‘the Intergovernmental Commission’).
(3)
Until the end of the transition period provided for in the Agreement on the withdrawal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from the European Union and the European Atomic Energy Community (4) (‘the transition period’), the Intergovernmental Commission is the national safety authority within the meaning of Directive (EU) 2016/798 responsible for the Channel Fixed Link.
(4)
At the end of the transition period, the Intergovernmental Commission will become a body established through an international agreement between a Member State, namely France, and a third country, namely the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (‘the United Kingdom’). Unless otherwise provided for in an international agreement binding upon the United Kingdom, it will no longer be a national safety authority under Union law and Union law will no longer be applicable to the part of the Channel Fixed Link under the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom.
(5)
To ensure the safe and efficient operation of the Channel Fixed Link, it is appropriate to retain the Intergovernmental Commission as the single safety authority responsible for the whole of that infrastructure.
(6)
To that end, Decision (EU) 2020/1531 of the European Parliament and of the Council (5) empowers France, under certain conditions, to negotiate, sign and conclude an international agreement, supplementing the Treaty of Canterbury, under which the Intergovernmental Commission is retained as the single safety authority competent for the application of Union law within the Channel Fixed Link.
(7)
To this effect, specific rules should be established regarding specific safety authorities, as well as regarding the duties of the Member State concerned to take all the necessary measures to ensure that Union law is applied at all times by the specifc safety authority or, failing that, by its national safety authority.
(8)
Dispute settlement between the Member State concerned and the third country in the area of railway safety may raise questions of interpretation of Union law. Consequently, the Court of Justice of the European Union should be made competent to give preliminary rulings on such questions.
(9)
Directive (EU) 2016/798 should therefore be amended accordingly.
(10)
Since the objective of this Regulation, namely to ensure the safe and efficient operation of the Channel Fixed Link after the end of the transition period, cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States but can rather, by reason of the scale and effects of the proposed action, 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 to achieve that objective.
(11)
This Regulation should enter into force as a matter of urgency on the day following that of its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union,
