The European Commission (EC) has announced its intention to revise EU rules on train driver certification, set in the Directive 2007/59/EC, with the purpose of strengthening the role of the railway sector by simplifying cross-border operations towards a more interoperable network, as well as smoothing operations and traffic management activities. EIM positively welcomes this initiative, being ready to contribute constructively to the preparation of the new proposal.

EIM has been engaged on this dossier since its very beginning. The present paper update and consolidates formal positions taken throughout previous discussions with the EC and relevant stakeholders, in view of the forthcoming legislative proposal, taking into account developments since 2022, such as feedback by infrastructure managers on their train operations, the EC’s high-speed rail action plan, and the evolving debate on digital tools for cross-border communication.

The revision of Directive 2007/59/EC (TDD) takes place within a renewed political context shaped by the EC’s commitment to simplification, competitiveness and the reduction of administrative burden, as reflected in the Draghi and Letta reports and the successive Omnibus simplification packages. In this regard, the TDD revision is a paradigmatic case: a piece of sectoral legislation whose technical rigidities generate disproportionate operational costs without commensurate safety benefits. EIM’s proposals, as set out in this paper, are deliberately aligned with this agenda — seeking to remove unnecessary procedural burdens, restore proportionality between regulatory requirements and underlying risk, and consolidate a risk-based approach grounded in the SMS framework already mandated by the Safety Directive (EU) 2016/798 and CSM Regulation (EU) 2018/762.

As a representative body for infrastructure managers (IMs), EIM brings a specific perspective to this revision. While the TDD primarily regulates competence requirements for drivers – and therefore affects railway undertakings (RUs) most directly – its provisions have also significant practical consequences for IMs. These relate to the certification of drivers of IM trains and OnTrack-Machines (OTM) operators within the limited field of the current shared competence model, besides language and communication requirements.

Read the Position Paper here :