On October 30, 2024, the Decree amending the fourth paragraph and adding a fifth paragraph to Article 28 of the Political Constitution of the United Mexican States, regarding passenger railway transportation, was published in the Official Gazette of the Federation.
The main objective of the amendment is to recover the relevance of passenger railway transportation services, to generate social welfare in the country, through the creation of employment sources and the improvement of people's mobility.
In addition, it should be noted that this amendment was presented as a follow-up to the decree published in the Official Gazette on November 20, 2023, by virtue of which the provision of public railway passenger transportation services is declared a priority area for national development.
To this end, the Initiative proposes the following amendments to article 28 of the Constitution:
(i) Amend the fourth paragraph to incorporate the specific mention of passenger and freight railway transportation as part of the priority areas for national development.
In this regard, it is important to note that the current text of said article already identifies railways within such priority activities; therefore, the proposal solely seeks to add a specific reference to both types of transportation.
(ii) A fifth paragraph is added to establish that the Mexican State retakes the right to use railways to provide passenger transportation services, for which reason the Executive Branch may grant assignments to public entities or concessions to private companies.
It is important to consider that the current concessions already provide that the Federal Government may grant additional concessions for the provision of passenger transportation services in the railways currently concessioned. Likewise, titles of assignment are also provided for in the current law and serve as a form of concession to be granted to governmental entities or Mexican States so that they may participate in the provision of railway transportation services.
(iii) In one of its transitory articles, it states that individuals who have concessions to provide railway freight transportation services may obtain concessions to provide railway passenger transportation services, which shall be given preference in terms of what is established in the applicable laws.
(iv) The reform became effective on October 31st and it is established that the Mexican Congress has a period of 180 natural days, counted as of said date, to make the necessary adjustments to the corresponding secondary legislation.
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