Brussels, 05/02/2016 (Agence Europe) - The Romanian transport master plan was the subject of lively debate, with Regional Policy Commissioner Corina Cretu in attendance, in the European Parliament chamber on Thursday 4 February. The discussions formed part of the debate on rail infrastructure and public services in the Danube and Adriatic macro-regions.
The opening salvo came from chair of the transport and tourism committee Michael Cramer (Greens/EFA, Germany) who expressed concern that the European Commission had accepted the master plan submitted by Romania, which proposes a 30-40% reduction in the national rail network. More generally, Cramer regretted that 60% of European TEN-T funding is allocated to developing the road network and only 20% to the rail network. He feels that, with a breakdown of this sort, the EU will never achieve the climate goals it set itself.
His intervention somewhat infuriated a number of Romanian MEPs, such as Claudia Tapardel (S&D) who pointed out that the issue had been fully debated in June of last year. She reminded MEPs that, at the time, it has been established that Germany and France had made budget cuts in the rail sector far greater than those of Romania. In similar fashion, Doru-Claudian Frunzulica (S&D) noted that, while it is true that Romania is removing 30% of its rail network, only 2% of freight and 8% of passenger traffic will be affected. In his view, maintaining the whole of the Romanian network would quite simply be impossible.
These responses did not seem to be to the satisfaction of Green MEP Cramer for whom removal of over a fifth, far from making the most of the rail network, is more akin to destroying it. He wondered, too, whether a similar closure of a road network had ever been considered in Europe and asked if the cuts in the Romanian plan were for budgetary reasons. His question went unanswered.
Cretu mounted a stout defence of the Commission and pointed out that the development of transport strategies fell very much within the responsibility of the member states and not of the Commission, which can only play a coordinating role. “We need political will”, she said. “We have enough tools in our tool box”, she went on to say, before adding that it was up to the member states to make best use of them. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)