Brussels, 22/04/2005 (Agence Europe) - The Transport Council on Thursday in Luxembourg arrived at an agreement on the draft regulation establishing a financial instrument, the Marco Polo II programme to encourage the transfer of freight transport from the roads to more environmentally-friendly forms of transport. At this stage, however, there is only a partial general orientation while awaiting a first reading by the European Parliament and, above all, the results of the negotiations on the financial framework 2007-2013.
The aim of the Marco Polo II programme is to finance projects (“actions”) to improve the environmental performance of the goods transport system at Community level. The Commission proposes the granting of a budget of 740 million euros for 2007-2013 and plans to have thresholds in terms of the value of contracts and traffic volumes for projects to be eligible for the programme. In its general orientation, the Council modified the level of these thresholds: 2 million euros for catalyst actions (instead of 3 million),2.5 million euros and 1.2 billion tonnes/km for motorway of the sea actions (instead of 1 million euros and 500 000 tonnes/km), 500 000 euros and 250 000 tonnes/km for modal shift actions (instead of 1 million euros and 500 000 tonnes/km), 1 million euros and 500 000 tonnes/km for traffic avoidance actions and 250 000 euros for common learning actions.
The general orientation concluded also fixes a strategic objective to achieve before the end of the programme, that is 31 December 2013, a “transfer (…) of the share of international road goods transport corresponding to the total expected annual rise in this traffic, expressed in tonnes per kilometre” as a result of the various projects financed. However, to reassure some delegations, the Council adopted a declaration linking this objective to the negotiations underway on the future financial perspective. The declaration states that the Council had concluded a partial general orientation on this proposal, “which it could reassess in the light of the opinion of the European Parliament or in case of any new elements, particularly the impact of the financial framework which is to be drawn up taking general account of the financial perspective, more particularly with regard to the quantitative strategic objective fixed”.