Brussels, 22/04/2004 (Agence Europe) - As anticipated (EUROPE of 17 April, p.14), the European Parliament has approved the Council's common position on the decision modifying Community guidelines for trans-European transport networks (TETNs). Adopting the recommendation of British Conservative Philip Bradbourn on Wednesday, the Parliament gave its green light to the list of 30 priority projects to develop the TETNs, to be completed by 2020. Only the Greens/EFA and the GUE/NGL voted against this common position, after the Parliament rejected outright the six amendments they tabled in a vain effort to change the list of priority projects.
Presenting its proposed decision in October 2003, the European Commission had hoped not only to change Community guidelines on TETNs ahead of the EU's forthcoming enlargement, but also, and especially, to breathe new life into projects selected in 1994 and 2001, which have seen lengthy delays in their completion due to hold-ups on the part of the Member States. The Commission has thus proposed a list of 29 priority projects, including some unfinished ones, and a series of instruments (finally) to allow the projects to be completed (declaration of European interest, appointment of European co-ordinator). It also presented a proposed regulation increasing Community funding from 10 to 30% for the cross-border parts of the priority projects (EUROPE of 4 and 2 October 2003).
The financial plank caused few problems in Council and Parliament, which agreed to increase Community funding from 10 to 20% (instead of 30%). Discussions on the list of priority projects ("Annex III") were clearly a lot trickier, and led to a series of clashes between the Member States, the Commission and the Parliament (which made substantial changes to the list of priority projects at its first reading of 11 March, notably removing the highly controversial Strait of Messina: EUROPE of 12 March). After a series of formal consultations, Parliament and Council finally agreed on the draft common position, which was adopted by the Council on 14 April, reconciling the interests of both sides by including many Parliament amendments, excepting those making considerable changes to the list of priority projects.
The list of priority projects (to be published in EUROPE/Documents), includes, amongst others: - the rail/road bridge over the Strait of Messina-Palermo, on the rail axis linking Berlin with Messina (project 1); - the extension of the rail axis linking Lyons with the Ukrainian border, by including the Koper-Divaca-Ljubljana section (project 6); - the inclusion of the Kiel canal, for development of the Baltic Sea region (project 21); - extension of the rail project to connect Athens and Dresden, by including the Prague-Linz trunk (project 22); the Seine-Escaut river link (project 30). The list does not include: - the extension of the Ionian/Adriatic/Black Sea intermodal rail axis to include the Balkans (project 29) and the extension of the Gdansk-Brno/Bratislava-Vienna motorway axis towards the Hungary/Croatia border (project 25). The plenary rejected all the Greens/EFA and GUE/NGL amendments calling especially (and once again) for the bridge over the Strait of Messina to be removed from the priority projects.
The common position guarantees that Parliament will have codecision whenever the list is modified, and that it will be consulted to appoint European co-ordinators. It reinforces the environmental provisions of the proposal by asking the Member States to take account of the results of environmental assessments when drawing up plans and programmes for priority projects. The Commission will also take account of these assessments in the legislative proposals for possible revisions. The common position, however, does not provide for sanctions, as the Parliament had hoped, having proposed the removal from the list of all priority projects with negative environmental fallout.
The common position will promote the development of "sea motorways", and calls upon the Commission to define specific projects to be carried out in the three years after the decision enters into force. It also provides for navigable waterways and canals linking two sea motorways to be part of the TETNs. However, the common position stipulates that aid to get these sea motorways up and running must not cause competition distortion.
Lastly, in default of an article the Parliament wanted to see in the legislative proposal to give a legal basis for rapid start-up programmes for certain trunks of the priority projects ("Quick Start"), the common position states in a "recital" that the Commission can make proposals on this to the Parliament and the Council.