L 108/4 Official Journal of the European Union 29.4.2009 COMMISSION REGULATION (EC) No 352/2009 of 24 April 2009 on the adoption of a common safety method on risk evaluation and assessment as referred to in Article 6(3)(a) of Directive 2004/49/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council (Text with EEA relevance) THE COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES, Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Community, Having regard to Directive 2004/49/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 29 April 2004 on safety on the Community’s railways and amending Council Directive 95/18/EC on the licensing of railway undertakings and Directive 2001/14/EC on the allocation of railway infrastructure capacity and the levying of charges for the use of railway infra- structure and safety certification (Railway Safety Directive) (1), and in particular Article 6(1) thereof, Whereas: (1)  Pursuant to Article 6(1) of Directive 2004/49/EC, the Commission should adopt the first set of common safety methods (hereinafter CSMs) covering at least the risk evaluation and assessment methods mentioned in Article 6(3)(a) of that Directive, on the basis of a recom- mendation of the European Railway Agency. (2)  The European Railway Agency made a recommendation on the first set of common safety methods (ERA-REC-02- 2007-SAF) on 6 December 2007. (3)  In accordance with Directive 2004/49/EC, CSMs should be gradually introduced to ensure that a high level of safety is maintained and, when and where necessary and reasonably practicable, improved. (4)  Article 9(1) of Directive 2004/49/EC requires railway undertakings and infrastructure managers to establish their safety management systems in order to ensure that the railway system can achieve at least the common safety targets (CSTs). According to point (2)(d) of Annex III to Directive 2004[49[EC, the safety management system must include procedures and methods for carrying out risk evaluation and implemen- ting risk control measures whenever a change of the operating conditions or new material imposes new risks on the infrastructure or on operations. That basic () O] L 164, 30.4.2004, p. 44; corrected by O] L 220, 21.6.2004, p. 16. ) ) 0] 0] element of the safety management system is covered by this Regulation. As a consequence of the application of Council Directive 91/440/EEC of 29 July 1991 on the development of the Community’s railways (%) and of Article 9(2) of Directive 2004/49/EC, particular attention should be paid to risk management at the interfaces between the actors which are involved in the application of this Regulation. Article 15 of Directive 2008/57/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 June 2008 on the interoperability of the rail system within the Community (%) requires Member States to take all appro- priate steps to ensure that the structural subsystems constituting the rail system may be placed in service only if they are designed, constructed and installed in such a way as to meet the essential requirements concerning them when integrated into the rail system. In particular, the Member States must check the technical compatibility of these subsystems with the railway system into which they are being integrated and the safe integration of these subsystems in accordance with this Regulation. The absence of a common approach for specifying and demonstrating compliance with safety levels and requirements of the railway system proved to be one of the obstacles to liberalisation of the railway market. Therefore, in the past, the Member States performed their own assessments in order to accept a system, or parts of it, which had already been developed and proven safe in other Member States. To facilitate mutual recognition between Member States, the methods used for identifying and managing risks should be harmonised among the actors involved in the development and operation of the railway system as well as the methods for demonstrating that the railway system in the territory of the Community conform to safety requirements. As a first step, it is necessary to harmonise the procedures and methods for carrying out risk evaluation and implementing control measures whenever a change of the operating conditions or new material imposes new risks on the infrastructure or on operations, as referred to in point (2)(d) of Annex III to Directive 2004/49/EC. L 237, 24.8.1991, p. 25. L 191, 18.7.2008, p. 1.