Regulatory bodies on the RFC Baltic-Adriatic rail freight corridor have signed an amendment adding Hungary and Croatia to their cooperation agreement.
The amendment updates the 2015 cooperation agreement between national rail regulatory bodies responsible for monitoring competition on Rail Freight Corridor 5, Baltic Sea–Adriatic Sea. The agreement covers information exchange, handling of cross-border complaints and supervision of non-discriminatory access to rail infrastructure.
The new parties are Croatia’s HAKOM and Hungary’s rail regulatory body within the Ministry of Construction and Transport. The other signatories are Austria’s Schienen-Control, the Czech competition authority ÚOHS, Italy’s Autorità di Regolazione dei Trasporti, Poland’s UTK, Slovenia’s AKOS and Slovakia’s Transport Authority.
The amendment follows the extension of the corridor under the revised TEN-T framework. It states that RFC Baltic-Adriatic has been extended to Croatia and Hungary and that the cooperation agreement must be aligned with the new corridor structure.
The corridor management board is legally registered in Italy. Under the amended arrangement, Italy’s Autorità di Regolazione dei Trasporti acts as the competent regulatory body linked to the corridor’s legal seat.
The agreement keeps the existing principles for regulatory cooperation. National regulators remain responsible for infrastructure manager-related complaints in their own jurisdictions, while cross-border cases involving the Corridor One-Stop Shop can be handled jointly under the procedure set out in the agreement.
RFC Baltic-Adriatic links Baltic Sea ports with the Adriatic region through Central Europe. The extension brings Hungary and Croatia into the regulatory cooperation structure covering access and competition oversight on the corridor.
