EU: The Transport Minister, Mr Brennan, will tonight chair talks in Brussels aimed at securing during Ireland's EU presidency a deal on liberalising rail freight.
If the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers cannot agree on the proposal at this evening's negotiating session, the proposed legislation will fall.
What is at stake, according to the European Commission, is the survival of freight traffic on Europe's railways, which has been in decline for 30 years.
"We have been trying to open up the railways," said Mr Gilles Gantelet, spokesman for the European Commissioner for Transport, Ms Loyola de Palacio.
"The railways are the only market not integrated at a European level."
The proposal aims, among other things, to set a deadline for opening up national railway networks to competition in carrying freight. Governments will be obliged by EU law to ensure that foreign railway companies have fair access to the networks.
In the case of international freight traffic, the deadline is to be brought forward to January 2006. In the case of freight traffic within national boundaries, the deadline proposed is January 2008. However, these deadlines are for discussion at tonight's meeting.
The Irish presidency will also need to secure agreement on two further points. The European Parliament is objecting to the composition and mandate of the governing board of the European Railway Agency, which is supposed to draw up the standards of an EU-wide rail network, including safety standards and technical specifications for inter-operability between different national companies.
Also at issue is whether the legislation on rail-freight liberalisation should make any reference to the more contentious matter of liberalising international passenger traffic.
The European Parliament wants a deadline set for the EU to open up its international passenger services to competition. The council is less enthusiastic, with Belgium and France being particularly defensive of their existing national rail services.