Europe needs a “core network” of corridors, carrying large and consolidated volumes of freight and passengers traffic with high efficiency and low emissions, thanks to the extensive use of more efficient modes in multimodal combinations. Despite EU enlargement, large divergences in terms of transport infrastructure remain between eastern and western parts of the EU, which need to be tackled. The European continent needs to be united also in terms of infrastructure.
The core network must ensure efficient multi-modal links between the EU capitals and other main cities, ports, airports and key land border crossing, as well as other main economic centres. It should focus on the completion of missing links – mainly cross-border sections and bottlenecks or bypasses – on the upgrading of existing infrastructure and on the development of multimodal terminals at sea and river ports and on city logistic consolidation centres. Better rail/airport connections must be devised for long distance travel. The selection of projects eligible for EU funding must reflect this vision and put greater emphasis on European added value. Co-funded projects should equally reflect the need for infrastructure that minimises the impact on the environment, that is resilient to the possible impact of climate change and that improves the safety and security of users. A well-performing transport network requires substantial resources. The studies carried out for the creation of the new White Paper have revealed that the cost of EU infrastructure development to match the demand for transport has been estimated at over EUR 1.500 Billion for 2010-2030. The completion of the TEN-T network requires about EUR 550 Billion until 2020 out of which some EUR 215 Billion can be referred to the removal of the main bottlenecks. This does not include investment in vehicles, equipment and charging infrastructure which may require adding EUR 1.000 Billion to achieve the emission reduction goals for the transport system. But in order to achieve these goals, diversified sources of finance both from public and private sources are required. Better coordination of the Cohesion and Structural Funds with transport policy objectives is needed, and Member States need to ensure that sufficient national funding is available in their budgetary planning, as well as sufficient project planning and implementation capacities.
[ by Elena Ilie ]Share on:
