(1)

Regulation (EU) 2016/796 gives the European Union Agency for Railways (‘the Agency’) power to take individual decisions in the fields of vehicle authorisation, safety certification and ensuring harmonised implementation of European Railway Traffic Management System (‘ERTMS’) trackside. It also establishes Boards of Appeal before which such individual decisions of the Agency may be appealed.

(2)

The Commission published a call for expressions of interest on 25 May 2018 on the website of the Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport with a deadline for submission of the applications set at 30 June 2018. The Commission received applications from 46 candidates.

(3)

The Commission assessed those applications against the criteria specified in the call for expressions of interest. Those included the criteria of eligibility, the criteria relating to technical and professional capacity, the knowledge requirements and the criteria for the disciplines subject to the Agency's decision, namely vehicle authorisation, single safety certification and ERTMS. In order to avoid potential conflicts of interest, candidates who had worked in the Agency in the previous two years were excluded from the selection procedure. Following the assessment of the applications, 40 candidates were selected as qualified experts for the Boards of Appeal and placed on the list,