The epic with the adoption of the law on railway transport has been going on in Ukraine for years and has already survived more than one government and Verkhovna Rada. A year ago, another version of it was registered in the parliament, albeit with a different name and not in the form that was discussed with business. However, it got stuck at the level of the relevant parliamentary committee. In August of this year, the government presented a draft law on safety and interoperability of railway transport.
The reason for this move was that a decision was made to divide the previous draft law on the system and features of the functioning of the railway transport market of Ukraine No. 12142 (which was withdrawn from consideration) into two parts. First, a draft on safety issues and technical regulation on the railway. Then, after the parliament adopts the first draft law, it is planned to move on to the second draft law, which will provide for the opening of the railway transportation market in accordance with the European model.
This week, the Cabinet of Ministers approved the first of the aforementioned draft laws.
Roman Melnychenko, senior project manager of the "Railway Transport" direction of the support, recovery and reform team at the Ministry of Development and Reform, spoke about the main provisions of the document during the conference "Production, operation and repair of rolling stock".
The Central Transport Service cites the key theses of the report.
About the main content
The law transposes half of Ukraine's international obligations. And even a little more. These are three main directives that cover the issues of driver certification, railway safety and interoperability. And also one of the sections of Directive 1234 on the Single European Railway Area, which concerns licensing. In this part, we are doing some homework in advance. Our obligation to the EU is to adopt part of the licenses next year. But from the point of view of practicality and for the business itself and because these documents are interconnected, we decided to regulate the issue of licenses together with all other permits and public services.
In general, in the final provisions of the law, we stipulate the obligation of the government, no less than six months after the adoption of this law, to submit to parliament for consideration the next law on the market, which will include tariffs, and the opening of tracks for private carriers, and PSOs.
All procedures in the law on interoperability are already regulated taking into account the future competitive market. This is no longer about one railway company. Everything is written separately for the operator, carrier and other market entities. It will still operate with a single UZ but is already ready for separation.
About the regulator
One of the main ideas of the law is to provide business entities with all public services on the principle of a single window. All procedures will go through the central executive body, which will implement state policy in the field of railway transport. The final decision on how exactly this body will be formed is up to the government. The law does not specify this. And, in principle, it should not. This may be as an expansion of the powers of the staff and financing of "Ukrtransbezpeka", which currently performs a certain part of the functions. So theoretically it could also be about creating a new body. But this is a matter of a specific decision of the government. Neither the European Commission nor the law obliges us to choose any one of the options. This decision will be made, first of all, based on the financial capabilities of the state.
A separate regulator in the railway industry is normal practice for all EU countries. But it will cost the state more and therefore may be negatively perceived by society.
About licensing
It may seem that this law has a preparatory role, but it is independent in itself. It regulates a number of procedures and does so byIt is not exhaustive. It regulates even those procedures that do not exist in principle now, but should exist under European legislation. Or they are closed within the UZ, such as the training of train drivers and the issuance of certificates to them. In this part, we raise the regulation to the state level, make it more transparent and understandable for both train drivers and training centers. We provide the opportunity to create new training centers. Or this law regulates those licensing procedures that currently exist, but there is a completely different approach to them. For example, today's license for the transportation of passengers, dangerous goods and hazardous waste is a safety license. A license in the concept of the draft law and European legislation is a document that confirms the economic capacity, good reputation of the applicant, his financial ability to cover possible losses. These are two completely different documents in essence.
About the security authority
We talk a lot about the national security authority - this is the central authority in this law. This is the main requirement of the EU - to create it, or to identify it among the existing ones, and to grant it all the powers it must exercise. It will issue all permits, provide administrative services, supervise safety in accordance with the procedure prescribed by law, etc.
At the same time, draft law No. 13674 on the National Bureau for the Investigation of Transport Accidents will operate on all types of transport and will operate independently of the ministry and all other regulators. With the aim of making its recommendations as detached as possible. Because it is not uncommon in Europe for the practice when, during a technical investigation of events, the investigative body finds shortcomings precisely in the area of regulation. And then gives instructions to the ministry or service that in their regulation in practice something turned out to be that the subject did, but the event still occurred.
As for public services, the national security body will interact with all possible stakeholders. It will provide carriers with licenses and safety certificates, provide certificates of authorization by infrastructure operators and various tracks, the rolling stock of which goes on the highway. It will organize exams for drivers and issue them certificates that will be valid throughout Ukraine for 10 years. There will be a procedure for recognizing training centers that will have the right to train drivers. Rolling stock repair and maintenance enterprises will receive certificates of appointment of the entity responsible for technical maintenance - an analogue of EU certification.
About "homework"
All procedures are written in cooperation with other state authorities. In particular, we should thank the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption.
We hope that the law will be adopted this year. Here the floor is for the parliament. Everything has been done on our part. The National Bureau of Investigation should be created in 2026. And from January 1, 2027, there should be a functioning national security body. It is clear that it will not yet carry out any activities - only personnel will be recruited, registers will be formed... But by that time, the structure of UZ should be adapted to this law. This is not yet about structural separation, but about a certain intermediate stage on the way to it - about the division of responsibility for security and interoperability. And by the end of 2028, this law should be put into effect as a three-year transitional one. By that time, the executive branch must adopt up to 30 more by-laws. For the most part, these are completely new procedures that do not yet exist in Ukraine. Some work in this direction is already underway, but officially we will be able to start working only when this law is adopted. Strictly speaking, this system should work in the form in which it exists in the EU by the end of 2028. This will be a structure fully adapted to EU accession. We will be preparing for all these three years. And business also understands that it will be preparing in order to be ready for new regulations in three years. I hope that you will see opportunities in this law, not bureaucratic obstacles. This is our path to Europe - one way or another, we have to overcome it. In the long term, this gives us access to all EU markets. And there are much more pluses than minuses in this.