Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-05-30-Speech-4-038"
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".
Madam President, honourable Members, the trans-European networks policy was designed 10 years ago precisely to help establish the internal market, and it needs to be taken into account with regard to enlargement.
There are, however, some amendments that present problems to the Commission, and it is these that I am mainly going to discuss. They are Amendments Nos 53 to 56 and 61 to 66 that seek to modify Annex III. Their adoption would in fact mean considering a very wide range of projects as a priority at Community level, projects that the Commission does not have sufficient information about in terms of their added value for Europe or of their possible interest for the Member States concerned, and it should be remembered that in such matters we always need the support of the Member States. The Commission cannot therefore accept these amendments, and I welcome the fact that the rapporteur and the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism cannot accept them either.
I would now like to discuss the amendments regarding the strategic environmental assessment of the network. In 1996, when the Decision that we are seeking to modify today was adopted, this issue was discussed at length. Therefore, despite what Mrs Fleming said, the Commission cannot accept the part of Amendment No 20 or Amendments Nos 40, 41, 42 and 43, which give the Commission the responsibility of conducting strategic environmental assessments, when European legislation in the Directive adopted in 2001 establishes that the task is the responsibility of the Member States. The Commission cannot replace the Member States in fulfilling their obligations. That is a basic principle, so the Member States should not shirk their responsibilities and try to pass on any responsibilities to us that they may not fulfil.
The Community could, however, contribute by providing added value, for example through supporting the development of assessment methods. We are therefore prepared to partially accept Amendment No 20, but only the part that proposes continuing the development of those assessment methods.
The Commission is also unable to support amendments that again call into question the objective of re-establishing a balance between new modes of transport and Community financial instruments. These are Amendments Nos 9, 31, 33, 35 to 39, 45, 52 and 57.
With regard to Galileo, we cannot keep doing cost-benefit analyses every year, and as you are aware, the studies that I am referring to have been conducted by various consultants. We cannot therefore accept Amendment No 10.
In addition, the Commission could never agree to include reducing the demand for transport among the objectives of the trans-European network. I am very sorry, this is not my responsibility as Transport Commissioner, nor is it that of the trans-European networks, and besides, no European Council has ever said that what we want to do is to reduce demand for transport. This is not the idea, and it is something quite different to separate the increase in demand from economic growth. Achieving this would represent a major step forward, and we are working on it. Amendments Nos 12 and 34 go further in the definition of environmentally viable transport than that established at the Gothenburg European Council.
Many amendments regarding the priorities for Community action in Article 5 present certain problems for the Commission, Amendments Nos 13, 49, 15, 21, 17, 27 and 18 are rejected by the Commission.
With regard to defining the network of navigable routes, I agree with Mrs Peijs on the importance of navigable routes, and we are conducting very important initiatives. One of the projects that we have included concerns improving the link between the Danube system and the Rhine-Rhône system. The trouble is that there is a small problem, because there are not, unfortunately, navigable rivers in all the countries of the European Union or in all the areas of the European Union. It would be much more viable if there were navigable rivers across the whole of the European Union. I know a country very well in which, unfortunately, we do not have those rivers, and we are very envious when we see them in other countries, not only because of how beautiful they are, but also because of the possibilities that they offer for transport. We do have other things, but we do not have such large rivers.
In any case, what I want to say is that the Commission supports the idea of including 'River Information Systems', but we cannot commit ourselves to putting forward a plan to develop them, as unlike the railways, the river system does not have a Community interoperability regulation. However, I wish to say to Mrs Peijs that as a result of her suggestions I am going to discuss with the Commission services whether progress can be made on these issues, as it would be of interest to do so. In short, I cannot make a commitment. I want to see the cost-benefit analysis and the possibilities, and, if it is feasible, in time I will also make a proposal for interoperability in the river navigation systems.
Neither can we accept Amendments Nos 25 and 26 because we do not wish to alter the maps of proposed internal ports. Finally, I would like to say that I fully understand Amendments Nos 29, 30 and 46, which seek to withdraw from the list of priority projects in Annex III those which have still not been completed after fifteen years. I fully understand them, and they would make sense, but there is a problem, very often these projects, which are of trans-European interest, are put forward by the Commission, and the Member States accept them, but show very little interest.
As some of you have said, today, ten years later, only 20% of the network has been completed. In order to complete the network that is currently planned an investment of around EUR 400 billion would be required.
I do not wish to give examples, but we can all think of them. If the possibility offered by these amendments existed, some Member States would use it when a project that is very important for the Union is of little national interest. It would be different if we were always talking about projects of national interest. Then it would make sense to have a period of 15 years or even 10 years, but these are projects of Community interest, and, I stress, often the countries concerned only have a very relative interest. We therefore have to reject these amendments and Amendments Nos 44 and 50, which prejudge the content of the next review of the guidelines.
Finally, the Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 59 and 60, which eliminate or modify the maps of the trans-European network attached to the proposal for a decision, as those maps are used by both the Commission and the Member States. This is what was proposed by Mr Sterckx, among others, as I already mentioned. In the same way, Amendments Nos 47 and 58 cannot be accepted, as they interfere with the justification of the projects in Annex III or with the principle of subsidiarity.
I would like to answer the question asked by Mr Savary regarding the funds being insufficient. I think that this will have to be discussed along with the new financial perspectives. Here we are focusing the funds more, but not increasing the funds allocated. By focusing the funds what we are doing is acknowledging that we are contributing more due to the strong Community interest of the projects. It is true that some countries may have more interest in a specific project. More in-depth consideration would in my opinion bring us to the conclusion that we need to allocate more to the trans-European networks, precisely in order to favour the creation of infrastructures that will benefit the Community.
I would like to remind Mr Watts, who I regret has just left the Chamber, that the fact that a project is in European interests is mainly to attract the attention of the countries where the project is being conducted, as the co-financing that we provide is only partial. It is a system for providing incentives for the countries where the project is being conducted. Ultimately, the specific project that is selected and subsidised is decided upon in the financing committee for the trans-European networks, in which all the countries are represented and in which there is no leaning towards financing a specific country but rather the process is conducted in a balanced manner, taking into account Community interests.
To conclude, I would like to thank the rapporteur for his excellent work and the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism as a whole, which has worked hard and effectively on this issue. The adoption of this text, I hope without any delays, will enable us to focus Community action on the essential matters set out in the White Paper, providing coherence for the whole transport policy. It will also enable us to prepare, under the best possible conditions, a second review of the guidelines, which I hope the Commission will put to Parliament in 2004. What we need to do is to continue with the effort of focusing on the main corridors, including the sea corridors, and to integrate the priority projects of the future new Member States of the Union.
Once enlargement is completed we will be talking about investment figures of around EUR 500 billion, and the reality is that Community funding, including all of the funds available, currently only amounts to EUR 2 500 billion per year. The gap is therefore enormous and we can see that the final, most significant funding effort needs to take place at national level.
This explains some of the things that I am going to say later, but it should also show us that the limited resources that we have should be focused more clearly on political objectives so that they can be used as a platform to speed up national funding, whether public or private, and to speed up completion of the projects, which, I would like to remind you, are in the Community interest due to their association with the establishment of the internal market.
The priorities are: firstly, re-establishing a balance between modes of transport, and therefore promoting intermodal transport, which is one of its corollaries. Secondly, releasing bottlenecks, which would enable us, with a smaller investment, to have a greater impact on increasing capacity and improving the functioning of the whole system. Thirdly, taking into account the Commission’s priority, which is enlargement, which is going to be the most decisive priority and political factor in the years to come, not just now, as we prepare for enlargement, but when it actually takes place.
I would like to congratulate Mr Bradbourn on his report, on its quality and on the rigorous work that he has done, which I hope will enable this review of guidelines to be quickly adopted. I stress that it is an interim review, as the major review, with the plans and maps, is to take place in 2004.
The need to push forward these trans-European networks is a concern shared by the Heads of State and Government, which was expressed at the Barcelona European Council only a few months ago, and it has been asked that this text be adopted both in Parliament and in the Council before December 2002.
I am pleased that the report that you are examining supports the modification of Annex III. I wish to point out that practically all of the projects in Annex III were already among the trans-European networks in 1996, or had been requested by the European Parliament, and what is happening now is that they are being given priority. Annex III updates the list from 1994, the Essen projects, and I have particularly appreciated the rigour shown by the majority of the members of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism when dealing with this part of the proposal.
More than half of the amendments suggested by the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism are very good proposals which improve the Commission’s proposal and reinforce the priorities set out in the White Paper, whether aimed at promoting short-distance sea transport, inland waterway transport or integrating those systems with rail transport. The Commission can therefore accept them in principle, in part, or with changes to the way that they are worded."@en1
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