France and the UK should enforce lower charges for using the Channel Tunnel to facilitate its being used more heavily, the European Commission said Thursday as it started legal proceedings against the countries, reports The Wall Street Journal.
The countries should empower the tunnel's regulator to bring down charges, the commission said.
The commission has issued a "reasoned opinion" to France and the U.K., the first step in EU legal proceedings. The countries now have two months to respond, or they may face the European Court of Justice and possible fines.
"The Channel Tunnel is not being used to its full capacity because of these excessive charges," European Commission Vice-President Siim Kallas said in a statement. "As a result, more freight is being carried on lorries instead of by rail. Freight operators and their customers are being overcharged, and passengers are paying over-the-odds for their tickets."
The commission is reprimanding the countries because EU rules in this sector are implemented by member states—even though the complaints it received came from private companies.
The commission says the countries need to make the Intergovernmental Commission (IGC), the tunnel's regulator, truly independent and empower it apply the rules fairly, forcing prices down.
"We have yet to see the commission's formal request," said a spokesman for the U.K.'s Department for Transport. "In the meantime it is not accepted that the U.K. has failed to implement the relevant EU rules regarding the Channel Tunnel or that the IGC is not independent."
The French government declined to comment.
The commission also claims that a usage agreement dating from 1987 between Eurotunnel, the private company which owns the tunnel, and certain operators, which the commission didn't name, which allocates capacity to use the tunnel for 65 years, is not permitted under EU rules because of its duration.
It also said the high track access charges get passed on to passengers in their ticket prices and mean freight companies cannot afford to send more freight through the Tunnel.
"43% of tunnel capacity is currently unused," Mr. Kallas told reporters.
He added that rail passenger traffic has increased slowly in recent years—9.9 million passengers used the Tunnel in 2012 compared with 9.7 in 2011. But rail freight traffic is actually declining. Only 2325 freight trains passed through the tunnel in 2012—down from 2388 in 2011 and 2718 in 2008, according to Eurotunnel figures cited by the commission.
In a statement, Eurotunnel, which operates the Channel Tunnel and "Le Shuttle" rail link between the U.K. and the continent, said it "regrets" that some railway operators, who rent track access from the company, have had difficulties which have led them to abandon cross-Channel traffic.
"This process is targeted at the states and not at the company," Eurotunnel said in a statement. They said access charges had been agreed in 1987 with the national operators, and "are proportional to the cost of the adjacent public infrastructures."
The commission said it had been contacted by "numerous stakeholders" who have complained the charges for use of the tunnel are "far too high."
Read more of this report from The Wall Street Journal.