At a meeting of the Intermodal Transport group on Friday 26 May, the Swedish Presidency of the EU Council proposed new compromises on the revision of the rules governing the trans-European transport network (TEN-T). Interinstitutional negotiations have been underway since mid-April.
Initial changes were proposed at the previous meeting (see EUROPE 13186/11). The Presidency is continuing its work on the first chapter.
With regard to the general provisions on European transport corridors, the Presidency suggested aligning itself with the EU Council’s initial position. Article 11 provides that the Commission shall be “empowered to adopt delegated acts to amend the alignment of the European Transport Corridors in order to take into account, in particular, the development of major trade flows and traffic or substantial changes to the network”. The Member States wished to add a clause concerning changes to corridor alignments affecting parts located in the territory of neighbouring countries, specifying that “such delegated acts shall be based on high-level agreements on transport infrastructure networks concluded between the Union and the neighbouring countries concerned”.
Changes have also been proposed to Article 13, which lists the general priorities for European transport corridors. One of these is to develop a high-performance, fully interoperable rail freight network throughout the Union. The Presidency has taken up the notion of “continuity” sought by the European Parliament. It has also taken up another element of the European Parliament report: the addition of “information and communication technology (ICT) systems” to network deployment to ensure efficient use of the infrastructure.
Finally, in Article 12, which deals with the general priorities relating to the core network, the extended core network and the global network, the Presidency suggested taking up another of the European Parliament’s clarifications, by adding “preventing and mitigating transport poverty” to the list.
Read the text: https://aeur.eu/f/75d (Original version in French by Anne Damiani)