Brussels, 25/03/2002 (Agence Europe) - The Italian transport minister Pietro Lunardi will be meeting the Transport Commissioner Loyola de Palacio and the Internal Market Commissioner Frits Bolkestein in Brussels on Monday to inform them of Italy's concerns about the closure of the Mont Blanc tunnel to lorries. Commissioner Bolkestein said after the meeting that the Commission had sent France a request for information justifying the Tunnel's closure and that Paris had five days to respond. Failing that, the Commission will launch infringement proceedings for blocking free circulation; He explained that no regulations had necessarily been infringed if the closure is justified for safety reasons. The issue will be discussed at Tuesday's Transport Council as part of a wider discussion of transport in the Alps and lorries travelling through Austria and Switzerland.
At a Franco-Italian meeting on 5 March, French transport minister Jean-Claude Gayssot pledged to re-open the Tunnel to cars on 9 March and lorries on 25 March. This commitment was respected for cars but not for heavy lorries. Pietro Lunardi told reporters that "France does not give any technical or security reason for its refusal. It appears to be purely for domestic political purposes. At this point, it is becoming an emergency situation for truckers." The closure of the Tunnel since the accident in March 1999 has cost the Italian economy EUR 2.58 billion, he explained. Last week, the French transport minister said that in the long-term at least 35% of the lorries currently using the Frejus Tunnel would use the Mont Blanc Tunnel, but after three years of the Tunnel being closed, an experimental re-opening phase was required and this would be restricted to small trucks.
The Commission does not yet have any proof that free circulation legislation has been violated, but will examine any complaints submitted, explained Jonathan Todd, spokesperson for Commissioner Bolkestein, on Monday before the meeting of the Commissioners and Mr Lunardi. Gilles Gantelet, spokesperson for Ms de Palacio, said that a genuine problem of asphyxia had existed in the region since the closure of the Tunnel and traffic being diverted to the Brenner and Frejus Tunnels. Since the closure of the Mont Blanc Tunnel, some 1.6 million trucks had been travelling through the vallée de la Maurienne and the Frejus Tunnel each year. He said they would have to see why it hadn't been possible to re-open the Tunnel to heavy lorries and whether there were real safety issues. He said that in its White Paper on the future of transport in Europe, the Commission had stressed the need to develop alternatives to road transport.
The rail-rout Lyons/Turin project, launched last week by the French and Italian transport ministers was "urgent" he said, regretting that the current project only included a single tube tunnel, rather than two as recommended by the Commission to avoid the type of accident that occurred in the Mont Blanc Tunnel from being repeated. The Lyons-Turin rail tunnel is scheduled for completion in 2015, but may be finished in 2012, explain the French authorities. It will have the capacity for a million lorries a year. In a parallel development, the capacity of the Dijon-Modano-Italy line will be increased to be able to carry 35,000 to 50,000 lorries at year in 2007.