Brussels, 23/01/2012 (Agence Europe) - The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) has stated that road safety should not be put on the sidelines of the negotiations on the next EU budget and that the allocation of European funds on this subject should be taken into account.
Money for road safety. The Union's multiannual financial framework for the 2014-2020 programming period is currently being negotiated. In this context, the ETSC, in a position dating from 17 January, has called on the institutions to stop reducing budget lines for measures tackling European road safety issues. The European Parliament shares this opinion and even stipulated in a resolution passed last September that it regretted the significant EU road safety budget cuts over recent years and called on the Commission to immediately redress this trend.
Fewer accidents, more savings. Improving road safety is also about making substantial savings because road accidents generate considerable socio-economic costs (medical costs, losses of goods and services, congestion, etc.). According to ETSC calculations, if all road accidents had been avoided in 2010, the benefits to society would have been the equivalent of €210 billion or more than half the European budget. Paradoxically, the money spent on road safety has fallen consistently, particularly so for the associations involved in projects in this area (€9 million in 2007, €1 million in 2011). This situation is untenable, if the Commission is to successfully meet its priorities established in the White Paper on road safety, which seeks to reduce the number of fatal accidents on the roads by half, by 2020.
EU funds for road safety. The ETSC is also insisting that the allocation of European funds also takes into account road safety when funding road infrastructure. Projects funded within the Trans-European Transport Network (RTE-T) and its mechanism for inter-connecting Europe have to respect European directives on road infrastructure safety (2008/96/EC), as well as the minimum safety conditions for tunnels in the Trans-European Network (2004/54/EC). These conditions are also expected to be extended to other funds that go towards European investment in infrastructure, such as the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the Cohesion Fund. The ETSC is suggesting that ex ante and ex post conditions underline this priority. (MD/transl.fl)