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CIT Guidelines on a new common EU Claim form

The European Commission has adopted a common EU Claim form for railway passengers which is applicable as of 2 July 2024. In order to ensure efficient implementation of this form, CIT has released some guidelines for its members.

Legal background

The EU Claim form was introduced as a new feature in Regulation (EU) 2021/782 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 29 April 2021 on rail passengers’ rights and obligations (rail PRR), granting passengers the right to submit their requests for reimbursement and compensation using that form. For this purpose, the adoption of an implementing regulation on this form is foreseen in the law. Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2024/949 establishing a common form for rail passengers’ reimbursement and compensation requests for delays, missed connections and cancellations of rail services has already been adopted and is applicable from 2 July 2024.

Practical implementation

Since the new implementing regulation on the EU claim form raised some questions among CIT members, the CIT General Secretariat drafted a set of Guidelines on the EU Claim form. These guidelines were also discussed during the CIV Working Group meeting in May this year.

The guidelines are intended to provide CIT members with an understanding of the legal background, the obligations of railway undertakings, the rights of passengers in this respect, and to provide practical guidance for the seamless implementation of the new implementing regulation.

CIT members are recommended to ensure that passengers can submit the EU Claim form both physically and online, to check the contact details provided publicly for claims handling purposes, to check whether the respective working language(s) are communicated to passengers in accordance with the rail PRR and national legislation, to ensure that passengers are provided with further information on how their personal data will be processed upon receiving the form, and to inform and train any relevant staff regarding the new EU Claim form in order to be ready to answer passengers’ questions and process this form as of 2 July 2024.

These Guidelines are available for members on the CIT website.