Brussels, 21/10/2009 (Agence Europe) - Improving transport links with Africa and taking stock of 30 priority trans-European transport network (TEN-T) will be the main subjects for debate at the TEN-T annual conference which opens in Naples on Wednesday 21 October.
The European Commission has announced the first group of projects that will benefit from a total of €500 million worth of investment (a second group of projects will be announced before the end of the year. The list of projects (with the Community contribution in brackets) is: Austria: Four-track development of the Western Line Vienna-Linz: Melk railway station (€3,400,000); Belgium: Rebuilding of Noorderlaanbridge (€1,342,000); France: New railway high speed line "LGV Est" Second phase: section Baudrecourt-Vendenheim (€75,996,000); Germany: BAB A3, Frankfurt-Nürnberg, renewal of the Main bridge at Randersacker (€2,395,000), Tri-modal enlargement of the water involvement of Cologne Port (€3,330,000); Hungary: Construction of a pier for combined Schengen and non-Schengen operations and seamless passenger transfer at Budapest Airport (€7,560,000); Italy: Rome Ring Road Motorway - northwestern section - upgrade to three lanes in both directions from km 11+250 to km 12+650 - completion works (€2,981,000), Implementation of nautical accessibility in the port of Venice-Marghera: operational and remedial dredging in two stretches of the West and South ship canals (€3,912,000), Hub of Torino, section Susa-Stura, removal of bottleneck (€52,740,000), Italy integration of communication and surveillance (IP1) (€4,048,000); The Netherlands: Elimination of the bottleneck of the north-south artery A2 (E25): building the urban highway tunnel in Maastricht (€15,000,000); Portugal: Faro Airport Development Plan - Phase 1 (€6,016,000); Spain: Express Route SE-40 (Seville). Section Coria del Rio-Dos Hermanas (North and South tunnels) (€23,969,000); Sweden: Port infrastructure facilities in the Malmö Northern Harbour (€5,922,000), E6.21 Partihall Connection (€16,296,000); United Kingdom: Thames Estuary dredge and reclamation works to support the integrated multi-modal London Gateway port and logistics development (€14,174,000), A14 Corridor Traffic Management Scheme (€11,670,000), Felixstowe-Nuneaton Route Work (€9,234,000)
The conference, “Building Bridges between Europe and its Neighbours”, will also provide the opportunity to bring together the operators and administrators of the EU transport network and that of the countries of Africa and to launch talks on how the EU can contribute to the implementation of the action plan to develop the Euro-African transport network proposed by Transport Commissioner Antonio Tajani (see EUROPE 9831). Rather than allocating fresh resources to infrastructure projects (already funded by the European Development Fund in sub-Saharan Africa and by the Neighbourhood Policy in the countries of the Maghreb), reflection will focus particularly on technical assistance. The Commission of the African Union plans to follow the pattern set by the EU and designate eight coordinators charged with facilitating the implementation of eight transport corridors in Africa. An expert from DG Tren will be sent to the African Union Commission to provide permanent liaison between the European Commission and the African Union. The conference will also provide the opportunity to relaunch cooperation in transport with other countries neighbouring the EU, particularly the countries of the Northern Dimension. On Wednesday, on the sidelines of the conference, representatives of Norway, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, Finland and the European Commission, along with Russia and Belarus are expected to sign a memorandum of understanding on transport and logistics as part of the northern discussion. (A.By./transl.rt)