Aleksandra Kliś-Lemieszonek, a Member of the European Court of Auditors who contributed as Head of Mission to the Court’s recent report on the completion of the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) core road network, spoke to the members of the European Parliament’s Committee on Transport (TRAN) on Tuesday 10 November.
Asked by the latter about the conclusions of the Court’s report on the maintenance of the core network, she assured them that the Commission had “accepted” the recommendations made in the report on this subject and “decided that some new monitoring arrangements will be introduced in the TEN-T revision”.
In the report, detailed in our article when it was published last April (see EUROPE 12472/15), the Court calls on the Commission, inter alia, to ensure that long-term planning (particularly financial planning) for the maintenance of the central road network is improved.
Indeed, the Court noted a reduction in the national budgets devoted to the maintenance of the central road network. This is despite the increasing length of the infrastructure and the ageing of the essential links.
“The lack of maintenance of the central road network by Member States creates a risk to the condition of the central road network in the medium and long term”, the auditors also pointed out.
Ms Kliś-Lemieszonek also recalled that maintenance remained a sensitive issue for Member States.
“Maintenance projects cannot be financed by EU funds”, she said, adding that “in the next programming period in the Cohesion fund there will a be a condition that requires for the Member States to fill in some requirements concerning maintenance of the roads”.
A legislative proposal to reform the TEN-T Regulation (1315/2013) is expected in the second quarter of 2021. Recommendations on this subject are also being prepared within the TRAN Committee (see EUROPE 12552/3). (Original version in French by Agathe Cherki)