Slow-moving transport projects face funding axe
Schemes that are running behind schedule to lose EU money.
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Almost 30 transport projects are to be given a further two years to ‘use or lose’ EU funding, but 11 projects that are running late will lose European money, Siim Kallas, the European commissioner for transport, will announce next week.
Kallas will present a progress report on the EU’s priority transport projects to MEPs on Wednesday (27 October), in a bid to demonstrate that EU transport spending is well managed and good value for money. Officials from the member states will get the report on 29 October.
The report looks at the priority projects of the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T), the core roads, railway lines, shipping and aviation routes and transport hubs across Europe.
In 2007-13 the EU is set to spend €154 billion on 30 prestige TEN-T projects, with around €47bn coming from EU grants and cheap loans. These include high-profile projects such as the Brenner pass linking Austria and Italy and more than a dozen new railway links.
But only five projects have been completed and at least 16 will not be complete until 2020 at the earliest. Although the projects were not intended to be finished in 2013, some face further delays, as key links in the project are running late.
The mid-term review assesses 92 separate funding decisions worth around three-quarters of the EU’s €8bn TEN-T budget. (A further €12.3bn in EU funding comes from cohesion funds and €29.7bn in cheap loans and guarantees.)
The European Commission has decided that 29 projects, which can be completed before the end of 2015, can keep their EU funding, although this was originally meant to be spent by the end of 2013. But 11 projects that cannot meet the 2015 deadline will lose EU funds, freeing up around €300 million.
A Commission official said that these projects would still go ahead without EU funds, because national governments provide the bulk of the money. Projects losing money would also be entitled to reapply for EU funds. “It is a fine balance, but we were quite careful to make sure that the cuts do not put in danger the projects themselves,” the official said.
“We can be confident that we will not kill any of the projects. But at the same time we will accelerate some and show that we are managing the programme very tightly – and that for the Commission is critical,” the official said.
Cross-border projects
Kallas is preparing the ground for a bid for more EU money and powers on big cross-border transport projects when he publishes a review of TEN-T policy next year.
Kallas, who was responsible for administration in the last Commission, is keen to show that he has a tight rein on his department’s spending. But there is a quid pro quo, one aide pointed out: “He would say ‘I want to have a tight budget, but I expect something more from the member states’.”
The payback is for national governments to agree to more EU management of TEN-T projects.
The Commission has long been frustrated that national governments do not ‘think European’ on big infrastructure plans, favouring projects in the interior at the expense of cross-border links that would boost the whole single market.
When the Commission publishes proposals on reforming TEN-T management, next spring, it aims to put more power into its hands – within certain limits. The Commission would never be in a position of telling governments how to spend their money, said an official, “but we do need a core framework that sets general priorities”.