Brussels, 14/01/2003 (Agence Europe) - The meeting of the high-level Group on the trans-European transport network (TEN-T) held in Brussels on Friday and attended by representatives from the twelve candidate countries has allowed (according to a Community source) a consensus on the need to establish a shortlist for priority projects to be established that will allow for potential investors to be mobilised. Participants also discussed the methodology and assessment criteria for other projects. The same Community source explained that, "Officially, candidate countries have observer status but Mr Van Miert is keen that they actively participate".
The first meeting of the high-level group, Chaired by Karel Van Miert and responsible for assisting the European Commission in preparing a proposal to revise the 1996 guidelines on the trans-European transport network (see EUROPE 11 January p 9) took place on 12 December with representatives of EU Member States. It also sought to discuss the methodology and criteria for selecting priority projects presented by the different countries. This methodology, which is expected to be formally adopted on 28 January, is expected to develop over two stages, explained Community sources. Initially, the identification of what projects are eligible - decided on their amount and the governments' commitment in getting them swiftly underway. The same Community source explained that they were targeting projects that involved amounts of more than EUR 500 million but that the amount was flexible because it was an enormous amount for some candidate countries. The second phase consists of examining these projects by taking into account the different criteria, such as improving the traffic conditions on the large cross-border corridors, the re-absorption of the bottlenecks on the main trunk-roads the promotion of inter-operability on the national networks, whilst respecting the environment, the integration of the peripheral and the total area of the candidate countries. In order to submit these recommendations to the Commission by spring 2003, the Group will be meeting up frequently: 28 January, 14 February, 7 and 31 March and twice in April.