Key Notes

The Development of Trans-European Transport Networks (TEN-T)

I. Background

The EC Treaty contains a special title (see Title XV, Articles 154-156) devoted to the Trans-European Networks – TENs (a term which covers transport, telecommunications and energy). Decisions on TEN guidelines and priority European projects are taken jointly by the European Parliament and the Council in the co-decision procedure. However, responsibility for specific planning and funding essentially remains with the Member States.

At the outset efforts were made in the transport field to connect hitherto essentially national road, rail and waterway infrastructure networks, to eliminate bottlenecks, and to close gaps at European level. The trans-European transport network is intended to promote the exchange of goods and the movement of persons in the internal market and to link remote and isolated regions to the geographical centre of the EU.


II. What have the EP and the EPP-ED Groups achieved in recent years?

After the Essen European Council in 1994 had adopted a list of 14 priority projects, the Council and the EP, spurred on by the EPP MEPs in a difficult co-decision procedure in summer 1996, adopted a decision on Community guidelines for the development of the trans-European transport network. These guidelines designated infrastructure projects of common interest for which around € 400 billion of investment was planned for the period up to 2010. Six years on only 20% of the construction work had been completed.

The members of the EPP-ED Group expressed their disappointment and concern that this centrepiece of European transport policy had made very slow progress. As early as May 2000 its rapporteur on the 1998 annual report on the development of the TENs highlighted this emerging situation. In October 2001 the European Commission proposed a moderate revision of the guidelines for the trans-European networks. It introduced new horizontal priorities to remove bottlenecks in existing trans-European networks in which the transport of goods by rail, intermodality and the use of intelligent transport systems were promoted. In addition, the Commission supported the list of priority projects to which the European Council had given the go-ahead at its meetings in Essen (1994) and Dublin (1996). It also added six new priority projects such as, for example, the ‘GALILEO’ European satellite navigation system. The EPP-ED Group again provided the rapporteur for this TEN file, which was passed by the EP at first reading in May 2002.

The EPP-ED members have repeatedly highlighted the challenges posed by transport policy in an enlarged EU. In view of the enormous infrastructure deficit (in the applicant countries 20 000 km of roads, 30 000 km of railway line and a large number of ports and airports have to be built or expanded) political will and increased financial support are urgently required. The enlarged Community transport area can function optimally only if the infrastructure networks for all modes of transport are improved and expanded. This is the only way of raising the transport networks of the new Member States to a high level and of ensuring effective connections to the existing networks of the current 15 Member States.

With particular view to enlargement, on 1 October 2003 the European Commission presented an amended proposal to further reform the trans-European network policy, which essentially followed the recommendations and conclusions of the high-level working party chaired by the former Transport Commissioner Karel van Miert.

The European Council added a further project to the list of 29 priority projects to be commenced before 2010 and completed by 2020, bringing the overall number to 30. The Council and the EP must discuss this matter and take a decision on it in the co-decision procedure before the 2004 European elections.

As regards the construction costs relating to the TEN projects, the Group takes the view that a coordinated combination of Community, national, regional, local and private funds is urgently needed. Other funds for, amongst other things, the construction, expansion and maintenance of the networks should, in its view, be raised by means of infrastructure user charges. The amount of investment necessary to implement all these priority projects (the uncompleted priority projects dating from 2001 and the new priority projects) is estimated at € 220 billion. The overall cost of the network will run to at least € 600 billion by 2020.

Furthermore, in the European Parliament the EPP-ED Group is supporting the Commission proposal for an increase from 10% to 20% in the maximum funding contribution from the EU budget for the TENs in order to remove the most significant transport bottlenecks. In addition, it considers that greater use should be made of the funds of the European Investment Bank.


III. Aims for the next parliamentary term

In addition to integrating the networks of the 10 new Member States into the existing TEN network, the EPP-EP Group considers it a priority that, as a next stage, the necessary planning and preparations be carried out also to connect the transport networks of Romania, Bulgaria, the former Yugoslavia, Russia, Belarus and the Mediterranean countries to those of the European Union.


Romain Strasser, Advisor