Brussels, 07/02/2011 (Agence Europe) - The Hungarian Presidency of the EU will try to strike political agreement on the development of a pan-European Transport Network (TEN-T), Hungarian Infrastructure Minister Pal Völner told reporters on Friday 4 February. The compromise should cover the financing of TEN-T, explains a Hungarian Presidency press release. Unveiling this aim on Friday 4 February for the meeting of EU transport ministers in Gödöllõ and Budapest on Monday 7 and Tuesday 8 February, Völner said that the new approach recommended by the European Commission in its updated TEN-T policy might be “seriously disadvantageous” for some member states.
In the new approach, explains the Hungarian Presidency, most of the funding for TEN-T (the TEN-T budget and also a section of the cohesion funds) would only be available for specific infrastructure that is part of the key TEN-T, namely a multimodal network of roads, rail, ports and airports between strategic areas of Europe. This means, said the Hungarian Presidency, that member states with few of these crucial routes or with recently updated infrastructure may lose a serious amount of the funding currently available. The change would be less damaging for new member states, where rail and road infrastructure is less developed than the rest of the Europe, added the Presidency. The funding would be put in a special TEN-T fund, which would force less developed countries to fight it out with richer countries to win their share. Völner said, however, that cohesion and competitiveness must not be allowed to be mutually exclusive. During the Transport Council meeting on Friday, he said the Hungarian Presidency would seek a compromise and find a Community approach to get all member states involved in reviewing the TEN-T, including central European countries.
The European Commission will issue tangible proposals in June for the financing of the TEN-T beyond 2013. The current budget (Financial Framework for 2007-2013) earmarks €8 billion for developing transport networks, including the 30 TEN-T priority projects. A further €43bn is available for eligible countries under the cohesion funds. In the talks about finance, some countries suggested that special long-duration funds should be created, lasting longer than the seven year budgets, to ensure proper strategic finance for key projects like ITER and Galileo. The Hungarian newspapers report that four of the 30 priority TEN-T pass through Hungary.
In Gödöllõ and Budapest, another area of discussion on Tuesday will be the way the TEN-T routes are planned, particularly definition of major TEN-T routes, based on a special report by the European Commission, which will be continuing to work on the issue after the meeting. As far as the Commission is concerned, the central TEN-T multimodal network should be designed in such a way as to concentrate traffic of both passengers and freight and make the best use of existing infrastructure. EU Transport Commissioner Siim Kallas and the chair of the European Parliament's transport committee, Brian Simpson, are attending the EU transport ministers' meeting. (A.By./transl.fl)