Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-10-25-Speech-4-138"
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"en.20011025.3.4-138"2
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".
Mr President, honourable Members, ladies and gentlemen, the tragic accident in the St Gotthard Tunnel yesterday morning reminds us of the tragic fire of 24 March 1999 in the Mont Blanc Tunnel. But before I say anything about the reopening of the Mont Blanc Tunnel, I would like on behalf of the Commission to express my deepest sympathy to the families of those who have lost their lives and also to extend our sympathy to the Swiss authorities and the Swiss people. Even if the causes of the accident are not yet known, this event again raises in a most pressing and dramatic manner the question of the safety of long road tunnels.
Apart from creating new infrastructures to cope with the bulk of freight transit traffic in the region, the Commission will be formulating minimum requirements for safety in tunnels, as announced in its White Paper. In the White Paper, the Commission also proposes a new scheme for transport infrastructure charges to take greater account of the external costs of the various transport operators.
This new charging policy should make a major contribution to creating a balanced relationship between transport operators, especially in sensitive regions like the Alps, favouring the most environmentally friendly among them. As part of its strategy for sustainable mobility, the Commission will also be proposing revision of the Euro-toll disc directive to allow cross- financing for new railway infrastructures.
Accordingly, the Commission has also proposed signing the transport protocol to the Alpine Convention on behalf of the European Community, which will be a political signal for the creation of a balanced relationship between transport operators, even if the corresponding provisions may in some cases be handled with a degree of flexibility.
In general, the Commission intends to make European transport systems sustainable and to take into account medium and long-term environmental objectives when doing this. A Communication to be presented by the Commission next year, will discuss this in greater detail
The reopening of the Mont Blanc Tunnel does not require Commission approval. This decision is the sole responsibility of the French and Italian authorities.
The imminent reopening of the tunnel has, however, revived a number of controversies. First and foremost is the question of the tunnel's possible closure to heavy goods vehicles, something that the people living in the Chamonix valley had been calling for long before the disastrous fire. However, the Commission takes the view that safety criteria alone should determine the reopening of the tunnel and the only condition should be that all the safety requirements are satisfied.
According to information available to the Commission, the tunnel has now been equipped with modern safety devices under French and Italian responsibility. An electronic control centre has been set up, the electrical installations completely renewed, the ventilation system modernised, ventilated refuges created every 300 metres and emergency stopping bays every 100 metres.
In addition, the training of operating personnel and emergency services has been greatly improved. As an additional safety measure, new rules have been introduced for the minimum distance to be observed between vehicles using the tunnel. Finally, the two original operating companies, ATMB in France and SITMB in Italy, have been replaced by a single administrative structure, an important step bearing in mind that, according to a number of technical reports produced after the fire, the large number of casualties was due, among other things, to poor coordination between the two operators.
The Commission has contributed EUR 22.5 million to the repair work, which cost around EUR 200 million. As a result of this disaster and the two subsequent fires in Austria – the fire in the Tauern Tunnel on 25 May 1999 caused by a pile up that claimed 12 lives and the fire in the Kaprun glacier railway on 11 November 2000 that cost 156 people their lives – the Commission decided that, together with experts, it should also examine how tunnel safety might best be optimised. Our conclusions form part of the White Paper on transport policy up until the year 2010.
Knowing that tunnels are important features of many cross-border transport links, the Commission is planning European rules. These are intended to create the necessary conditions for guaranteeing users of road and rail tunnels, especially tunnels forming part of trans-European networks, a high level of safety. The Commission will pass a proposal to this effect to the European Parliament and the Council early in 2002.
The most recent accident once more underlines the fundamental importance of controlling transalpine traffic flows. The Commission considers it an absolute priority that the two rail links already mentioned in the 1996 guidelines for the trans-European transport network, namely the Lyons-Turin link and the section across the Brenner, should be developed and taken into service without delay.
It has informed the competent ministers of this on many occasions, urging them to take the necessary measures to expedite these projects and in particular to give thought to how they will be funded, not excluding public-private partnerships."@en1
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