The core network of the trans-European transport network (TEN-T) will not be completed before 2030, concluded the EU Court of Auditors in its report on transport infrastructure, published on Monday19 January (see EUROPE 13317/7).
“In 2020, we reported an average delay of eleven years for the eight ‘megaprojects’ we analyse in the report. Today, for most of them, the situation has worsened”, warned Annemie Turtelboom, the member of the European Court of Auditors responsible for the report, at a press conference. “For five projects for which we had full data, the overall delay we now report is 17 years on average compared to the original plans. And this can still worsen as the projects are ongoing. The gap between planning and delivery continues to widen”, she added.
Compared with its findings in 2020 (see EUROPE 12472/15), the Court has calculated that total estimated costs have risen by 24% in real terms (excluding inflation) in just six years. The cumulative budget for ‘transport flagship infrastructures’ (TFIs) has almost doubled compared with initial estimates. This increase is mainly due to the rising costs of two mega-projects: the Rail Baltica axis, whose costs have exploded, with an increase of 160% in six years and almost four times the budget originally estimated, and the Lyon-Turin rail link, which has risen by 23% over the same period and is more than double the initial projections.
In 2020, the Court pointed out that the European Commission had limited legal means at its disposal to react to the delays and that it had not used those at its disposal. Despite the delays, it has launched only one procedure to question Member States - against France.
Similarly, although the revised TEN-T regulation in 2024 obliges Member States to align their national transport plans with EU priorities, progress on these projects depends solely on Member States’ scrupulous compliance with these provisions. “Most of the existing tools only apply to new projects in the planning phase, not to those already under construction”, says Mrs Turtelboom.
Read the report: https://aeur.eu/f/kay (Original version in French by Anne Damiani)