On Tuesday 13 June in Strasbourg, the European Parliament voted by 538 votes to 23 with 68 abstentions in favour of the report by Andrey Novakov (EPP, Bulgarian) on major transport infrastructure projects in the EU.
This motion for a resolution follows the Court of Auditors’ report on the EU framework for major transport infrastructure projects, published in 2021. The report also stresses that these major projects play a crucial role in the implementation of the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) policy.
“These transport infrastructure projects make the European Union proud (...), because they change the makeup of Europe and have an impact on people’s lives, but unfortunately the pace of development of these projects is slowing down. If the figures are to be believed, the construction of these projects has been delayed by an average of between 11 and 15 years”, said the rapporteur.
The Executive Vice-President of the European Commission, Margrethe Vestager, who was also speaking on behalf of the Commissioner for Transport Adina Valean, welcomed Parliament’s report, which placed the recommendations of the Court of Auditors’ report “in a broader context”, while at the same time recalling the limits and uncertainties of the budgetary framework.
“Major projects can benefit from long-term financial certainty (...), but, as you know, we have a multiannual financial framework (MFF) that covers seven years, and major projects are built over several MFFs”.
She also pointed out that there are many requests for projects, since in the first call for projects for the European interconnection mechanisms for the period 2021-2027, general requests were three times greater than the available budget of €25 billion.
A number of MEPs from all political sides have stressed the need for a supervisory system and strengthened control procedures, including a mechanism to combat “fraud and conflicts of interest”, underscored Ciarán Cuffe (Greens/EFA, Irish).
For Izaskun Bilbao Barandica (Renew Europe, Spanish) and Isabel García Muñoz (S&D, Spanish), the interconnections between countries needs to be prioritised. The second deplored the postponement until 2042 of the project between France and Spain in the two transatlantic and Mediterranean corridors. In her view, this delay “not only poses obstacles to the single market and mobility, but also calls into question the European project”.
Beata Mazurek (ECR, Polish) denounced “the various organisations which, under cover of green slogans, block projects”.
Lastly, several MEPs, such as Juozas Olekas (S&D, Lithuanian), stressed the importance of integrating Ukraine into European networks, “which is essential for providing our aid to the country, in its defence, but also for providing humanitarian aid”.
To see Parliament’s report: https://aeur.eu/f/7go
To see the Court of Auditors’ report: https://aeur.eu/f/7h2 (Original version in French by Pauline Denys)