Luxembourg, 12/06/2013 (Agence Europe) - The Lithuanian Presidency takes the helm of the EU Council of Ministers on 1 July. What are its ambitions for transport? Lithuania's deputy minister for transport, Arijandas Sliupas, tells EUROPE the key points of his government's strategy. (Interview conducted by Marie-Pauline Desset).
Agence Europe: The fourth railway package is certainly the main file on the table at the moment. How do you intend to deal with it?
Arijandas Sliupas (AS): Of course, the fourth railway package is a continuing priority on which the Irish side took the lead. The Council achieved a general approach on the directive on the interoperability of the railway system. We will continue on the technical part of this package and, logically, what we have set as a priority is to achieve a general approach on the safety directive in the December Council. Of course, there is a lot of work to do on that, but we see that as a reasonable workload and a reasonable outcome to aim for. The Commission sees the fourth railway reform as a package. So we will be completing the full package in order to start the negotiation with European Parliament. If any other option is decided we are ready to take it to negotiations in parallel.
(AE): What are your priorities on aviation and, in particular, the controversial airport package?
(AS): The airport package is not part of our priorities. This is not because we don't want to take it - but we looked at the files on the table and we needed to prioritise them. We had a strategic aim to take the files that can be finalised so the results would be achievable. Based on that, we saw that in the air passenger rights package we can achieve more. It very much depends on the results that we will be able to make on this file. Next will be the discussion on the airport package - not at the start of the Presidency. The informal transport ministers Council on 16 September will focus on the Single European Sky 2+. We expect a big input from all member states on this. Based on the conclusions, we will see what further actions we can take and what we can achieve by the end of the Presidency. It is very important first of all to understand where we are standing now and where we are going, because the functional airspace blocks are not really functioning - except a few of them. We need to strategically agree how we see further development on the Single European Sky. Our main goal is to have a progress report and pass it on to the Greek Presidency.
(AE): What are your other priorities? I guess the Connecting Europe Facility will require further work?
(AS): The Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) and the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) are part of our priority list - as they are for the trio of presidencies. We look at this regulation finalisation optimistically. We think it can be finalised by the end of the year. It depends, of course, on the adoption of the multiannual financial framework. Clean power for transport is also a very important file. There must be clear indication of what must be the infrastructure that has to be implemented and installed in member states. We are aiming to have an agreement on this. The Commission seems to be quite flexible. It is also up the flexibility of the member states to decide the density of the infrastructure network. The port policy package is on our table. Unfortunately we don't have much time to dedicate to this file, but I think a progress report would be a reasonable end up of the Presidency on that.