The European Court of Justice is expected to rule on whether the monopoly of the Dutch railway network by state-owned rail operator NS is permitted under European regulations. As it could take months for the courts to decide, NS trains will run as usual until a ruling has been made.
In the most recent contract between the NS and the government, the Dutch rail operator was given exclusive rights to almost the entirety of the rail network in the Netherlands until 2033 - a situation which has been contested by competitors such as Arriva and Qbuzz for years. This means that NS is the only rail company allowed to operate domestically between major destinations such as Amsterdam and Eindhoven or Nijmegen and Utrecht, which may not be seen as a good thing to many with NS being named among the worst rail operators in Europe.
According to de Volkskrant, the European regulations have been interpreted differently by different parties, which led competitors to file three different lawsuits against the government without success, as judges are unsure about how the legislation should be interpreted. To clear up any ambiguity, a judge from the Trade and Industry Appeals Tribunal (CBb) is the first to agree to forward the case to the European Court of Justice.
In 2023, the NS lost the exclusive right to international rail connections, and if the current concession is found to be illegal by European courts, the rail company could lose its monopoly of the Dutch rail network as well. If this is the case, the state-owned company will be allowed to continue operating trains under a “crisis concession” while the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management conducts the bidding process again.
With a ruling from the European Court of Justice expected to take months, competitors in Dutch public transport have been searching for loopholes to allow them into NS territory. Arriva previously received the right to run local trains from Zwolle to Leeuwarden and Groningen and planned to do so from January 2025. However, the company pulled the plug on the plans last minute stating the lack of capacity “to run trains profitably”.
While the NS has previously been against involving the European courts, it appears that the company has now made a U-turn on this resistance. An NS spokesperson has said that they are “pleased that clarity is being provided.”
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