Article 54 — Advisory Performance Panel

1. In accordance with the procedure referred to in Article 76(2), the Commission may set up or designate an impartial and competent body to act as an Advisory Performance Panel. The Advisory Performance Panel shall be established as an independent and impartial, expert panel. Its members shall be appointed on the basis of merit as well as to ensure a mix of skills and experience relevant to rail capacity, traffic, disruption and crisis management. The Advisory Performance Panel shall consist of not more than nine members. The Members shall be appointed by the Commission. It shall meet at least four times per year. The work of the Advisory Performance Panel shall be financed by the Commission. The Members of the Advisory Performance Panel shall be appointed for a term of four years and their mandate may be renewed twice. 2. The Advisory Performance Panel shall perform the following tasks: (a) providing recommendations to ENIM as regards the establishment and review of the European framework for performance review referred to in Article 52, including on performance areas, performance issues to be addressed under each of the performance areas, and harmonisation of methodologies, processes, criteria and definitions for the collection and analysis of data related to performance and performance indicators; (b) providing recommendations to ENIM, the ENRRB, infrastructure managers, applicants, regulatory bodies, Member State authorities, and, where relevant, other stakeholders for corrective measures, on capacity management, traffic management, disruption management and crisis management; (c) reviewing the results of the draft European performance review report and, preparing the self-standing section referred to in Article 53(2); (d) providing opinions and recommendations relating to the performance of railway infrastructure services in relation to the indicative railway infrastructure development strategy referred to in Article 8(1) of Directive 2012/34/EU, the business plan referred to in Article 8(3) of that Directive, the contractual agreements referred to in Article 30(2) of that Directive and the performance scheme referred to in Article 35 of that Directive; (e) providing advice to the European Coordinators on matters related to the performance of railway infrastructure services and rail transport services. 3. ENIM, the network coordinator, infrastructure managers, regulatory bodies, the ENRRB and, where relevant, other stakeholders shall cooperate with the Advisory Performance Panel, in particular by providing information related to performance on their own initiative or upon the Advisory Performance Panel’s request and make the utmost effort to take into account its recommendations in their work on rail performance management. 4. The Advisory Performance Panel shall respect the confidentiality of business secrets when handling information provided by relevant stakeholders or the Commission.