1.

With the aim of developing and improving railway safety, Member States, within the limits of their competences, shall: ensure that railway safety is generally maintained and, where reasonably practicable, continuously improved, taking into consideration the development of Union law and international rules and of technical and scientific progress, and giving priority to the prevention of accidents; ensure that all applicable legislation is enforced in an open and non-discriminatory manner, fostering the development of a single European rail transport system; ensure that measures to develop and improve railway safety take account of the need for a system-based approach; ensure that the responsibility for the safe operation of the Union rail system and the control of risks associated with it is laid upon the infrastructure managers and railway undertakings, each for its part of the system, obliging them to: implement necessary risk control measures as referred to in point (a) of Article 6(1), where appropriate in cooperation with each other; apply Union and national rules; establish safety management systems in accordance with this Directive; without prejudice to civil liability in accordance with the legal requirements of the Member States, ensure that each infrastructure manager and each railway undertaking is made responsible for its part of the system and its safe operation, including supply of materials and contracting of services vis-à-vis users, customers, the workers concerned and other actors referred to in paragraph 4; develop and publish annual safety plans setting out the measures envisaged to achieve the CSTs; and where appropriate, support the Agency in its work to monitor the development of railway safety at Union level.

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Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-10-28 · Text as adopted (Official Journal); later amendments are not incorporated in this text.