Enrico Letta, President of the Jacques Delors Institute and author of the report on the European Single Market (see EUROPE 13394/10), and several European experts called for more money to be allocated to rail on Tuesday 1 October at a conference organised by the Community of European Railways (CER) at the European Parliament.
“We want to make this legislature THE legislation of train”, said Mr Letta. He called on political decision-makers to take advantage of the momentum created by the start of the new parliamentary term and the appointment of the new European Commission to move things forward on this issue. “We are a small continent. Not being able to travel everywhere by train gives out a bad signal”, he added. In his view, making traveling by train easier is also a good way of building a relationship with the public.
Magda Kopczyńska, Director General for Energy and Transport (DG MOVE) at the European Commission, said that “there will be a recognition in the next budget proposal that for a cross border connectivity, we do need a stronger coordination coming from Brussels”. A central European budget would make it easier to ensure a cross-border connection.
However, she stressed that public funds are scarce because they are contested, and they will never be sufficient. “Around €200 billion is needed to complete all the networks, which go much further than the high-speed rail network”, she pointed out.
Eulalia Rubio, researcher on European economic affairs at the Jacques Delors Institute, pointed out that one of the characteristics of long-term investments, such as rail, is that they are profitable. “Long-term investment (...) has returns, the problem is that these returns are late and that’s something that does not help private investment investors in that there are high, high costs at the beginning of the investment until benefits appear”, she explained. In her view, the solution is to modularise private investment to help cover potential losses.
Finally, Robert de Groot, Vice-President of the European Investment Bank (EIB), said that the lack of an integrated capital market must be remedied. “Private investors [...] are opening up to investing also in public services across Europe, and what they are looking for is for projects that are mature”, he added. (Original version in French by Anne Damiani)