On Wednesday 26 August, the European Commission published its second progress report on the implementation of the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T), reporting “significant progress” in 2016-2017 compared to the 2014-2015 period.
In particular, the report details the progress achieved in the technical conformity of infrastructure. For ten of the thirteen available indicators, compliance rates with the requirements of the TEN-T Regulation vary between 81% and 100%. For the three remaining indicators, however, infrastructure compliance ranges from 11% to 67%.
On this subject, the authors extend, among other things, on the example of rail. In the rail infrastructure network, compliance would already be largely achieved in terms of electrification (89%), track gauge (86%), freight line speed (86%) and axle load (81%). On the other hand, the length of freight trains (43%) and the deployment of the rail traffic signalling system, the ERTMS (11%) are still lagging behind.
Investments. The Commission also welcomes the financial investments made over this period, hailing two “successful” years in this area. In total, more than €91 billion has been invested in the TEN-T in 2016 and 2017, of which €80 billion is dedicated to the completion of the core network.
The majority of investments come from domestic resources (73%). 11.5 billion was financed by loans from the European Investment Bank (EIB); 9.8 billion by the European Structural and Investment Fund (ERDF and CF) and 3.1 billion by the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF).
Revision. Finally, the institution indicates that the results of this report will feed into the current revision of the TEN-T regulation - a revision which should make it possible “to increase the efficiency of the network (...) , to allow for clean transport and to reinforce the quality and resilience of the infrastructures”. A proposal for revision could be published by 2021.
In April and June 2020, the European Court of Auditors devoted two audits to TEN-T (see EUROPE 12472/15, 12507/18), whose conclusions were much less positive than those of the Commission.
At the end of July, the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) had, in turn, expressed certain reservations about the progress of the work (see EUROPE 12538/15).
To view the report: https://bit.ly/2QxA3sp (Original version in French by Agathe Cherki)