Transport networks key in improving new Member States' infrastructure 

The new member states have considerable transport requirements. According to the European Commission, around 20,000 km of roads and 30,000 km of rail, as well as ports and airports, will have to be built or improved at a cost of nearly 100 billion euro between now and 2015. The establishment of transport infrastructure in the new Member States will not only involve the EU and national budgets, but also grants provided by the European Investment Bank and other financial institutions and contributions from the private sector.

If the trend of the last years can not be broken, road and air transport will be the main winners of enlargement by drastically increasing their share in the liberalised market during the next decades, thus putting increased pressure on the environment.

Trans-European Transport networks

The aim is that the ten Trans-European Transport Networks (TEN-T) expanding to the the new Member States are integrated in an efficient and sustainable transport network. These projects are expected to produce time savings and reduce the growing problem of pollution. According to recent research carried out for the Commission, it would boost the growth potential of the enlarged EU and create up thousands of new jobs.

These projects are:

• "Rail Baltica" axis Warsaw-Kaunas-Riga-Tallinn-Helsinki
• Railway axis Gdansk-Warsaw-Brno/Bratislava-Vienna
• Railway axis Athens-Sofia-Budapest-Vienna-Prague-Nürnberg/Dresden
• Railway axis Lyon-Trieste-Divaca/Koper-Divaca-Ljubljana-Budapest-Ukrainian border
• Railway axis Paris-Strasbourg-Stuttgart-Vienna-Bratislava
• Nordic triangle railway/road axis
• Motorway axis Igoumenitsa/Patra-Athens-Sofia-Budapest
• Motorway axis Gdansk-Brno/Bratislava-Vienna
• Rhine/Meuse-Main-Danube inland waterway axis
• Motorways of the seas for Cyprus and Malta

Rail

Central European Countries have a long rail history and a dense rail network. The share of freight transport by rail is still significantly higher than in the EU-15. However, since 1990 railway transport in the accession countries has decreased. Market share of railways fell considerably as a result. As within the EU-15, the accession countries face interoperability problems, e.g. with different signalling systems or the different gauge systems in Central Europe and in the Baltic States.

 

In an lign="justify">In an exclusive interview with EurActiv,Philip Bradbourn EP Rapporteur on the TEN-T said he expects the transport networks to bring "huge benefits" to the economic and social life of the new Member States. Asked about the impact of enlargement on transport policy, Philip Bradbourn said: "The EU's internal market will be opened up to include a total of 450 million people from the 1st May and transport undoubtedly has a huge role to play in facilitating this. Given the TEN's programme's propensity towards raillinks and 'Motorways of the Sea', this is a clear move towards lessening the reliance on road and subsequently negative environmental impact".

In some Central and Eastern European countries, regional passenger services are cross-subsidised from revenues of freight operations. The Community of European Railways (CER) claim that many railway companies are therefore currently losing freight revenues in order to finance their passenger services and cannot reinvest revenues from their freight traffic into the mo dernisation of operations. They call for the development of a common EU policy on public transport.

The Association of European Airlines (AEA) considers that air transport will play a crucial role in the accelerated development of the new member countries. Calculating that the average distance from Brussels to the ten capitals is 1400km, the association states that air is the most efficient mode to connect them to the centre, to the other regions of the EU, and to the world. AEA Secretary General Ulrich Schulte-Strathaus: “The new countries bring a considerable growth potential to the Single Market. Their airlines will find themselves facing new opportunities, but also new competitors, and a completely new regulatory environment. Their air-transport infrastructure, too, must be ready to adapt to the new realities.”

Policy expert Nicoleta Ion from the European Federation for Transport & Environment considers that: "however balanced the list of projects may be, it still remains an infrastructure building exercise, leaving little space for "soft" policies that aim at decoupling transport growth and economic growth. TENs may bring benefits for the overall EU trade, but small, local communities will be the first to deal with nuisances brought on by more transport infrastructure: more emissions, more transit traffic, more noise from high-speed railways, a fragmentation of the communities, etc. Also the presence of an EU-approved list of priority projects dramatically decreases the chances for smaller, local and regional projects to get funding, given that even Cohesion funding should be allocated as a priority to TENs projects".