A turning point in the history of European transports was the launch of the Single European Area/Single Railway Area concept by the EC Vice-President Siim Kallas during InnoTrans 2010. The concept was regulated once included in the present White Paper on Transport, as well as in the development process of the European 2014-2020 budget.
Although we could seem ungrateful or unappreciative waiting for radical and rapid steps in the implementation of this concept, it should, however, be said that such a concept implies a radical amendment of the legislative and technical approach of the railway sector. The current strategy of distributing responsibilities (or passing them to someone else’s responsibility) between the European and national level can only mean that the European Railway Market project is ab initio condemned to failure.
The transport network, as stipulated in a series of European documents, represents one of the foundation pillars of the European policy construction, contributing to the consolidation of social and cultural links, as well as to an offer of products attractive and accessible to all citizens in the community area. However, the experience of the past two decades shows a great discrepancy between visionary plans and the means used to implement them.
The most evident case is that of European corridors, long-distance, transnational routes aimed at linking Eastern to Western Europe and Northern to Southern Europe, but characterised by a visible fragmentation aimed at preventing the development of the transport activity. The lack of adequate financing and investment acceleration tools are about to turn all these routes in a fiasco. A European fiasco!
Let’s take the example of the route I know best: the pan-European Corridor IV/ Priority Axis 22/ Corridor E ERTMS/ Freight Corridor 7. A route aimed at linking the Black Sea and the south of the Balkans to Western Europe, but works at “Corridor IV” are still lingering in a sisific phase which discredits the railways. Dividing arguments based on the national-local and European criteria, next to a focus which falls either on passenger or freight transport, has permanently led to delays in carrying on works and cancelling feasibility studies and technical projects. Consequently, at the moment, less than a quarter of the route has been rebuilt or is being rebuilt, and repair works are not made in the wait of big sites, while projects that should have been initiated and carried out through 2007-2013 are surely heading towards cancellation. Yet we are dreaming about building tunnels of hundreds of millions of Euros and about equipping the route to Constanța Seaport with ETCS/ERTMS by 2015/2020 (as European Deployment Plan for ERTMS stipulates).As simple as that, freight continues to avoid railways, although there is a demand. At the same time, we are feeding our hypocrisy complaining about the increasing level of pollution, congestion and higher transport costs. By the end of works on the Romanian and Bulgarian territory (almost half the length of the route) the first investments will celebrate their 20th birthday (or more) forcing us to start works all over again.
It is necessary to correctly divide investments on phases and dimension at European level to build these European backbones so that business initiative could have its place in this industry. Through the current subtle and constant destruction of railways, we are condemning a great part of the European taxpayers to poverty and unemployment, hiding our heads in bureaucratic excuses. I am curious to find out to what projects of major importance the European Commission will decide to reallocate the billions of Euros of Corridor IV. And how does the Commission plan that we should carry goods from Eastern to Western Europe and back?
by Ştefan Roşeanu
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