Irish Regions Office Website

February 16, 2009

TENs transport review

In early February, the Commission launched a consultation Green Paper, 'Towards a better integrated Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) at the service of the Common Transport Policy'. This broad review process seeks the opinion of national governments, regional and local authorities, infrastructure managers, transport operators, financial institutions, and citizens on a set of the outlined policy objectives and options proposed to make the network of almost 100,000 km of roads and a similar length of railways plus inland waterways and over 800 airports or ports, more than the sum of its parts.

These revolve around the Commission's starting positions that TEN-T policy needs to progress beyond transport to account for future challenges such as EU-level objectives in relation to climate change and sustainable development, economic growth, and social cohesion plus the need to connect with the wider world. The Commission also proposes that a shift is needed to place infrastructure ''at the service of the transport sector'' through improved logistics and services, and seamless inter-connections between different modes of transport.
Among the options set out are a broadening of focus to better integrate the existing 30 (sometimes isolated) priority projects, including the Cork-Dublin-Belfast road/rail route, with a wider ''priority network''while equally catering for a broad range of evolving projects that may be identified on the basis of pre-established specifications and criteria. Input will be taken into consideration when preparing future legislative action including renewed Guidelines or other initiatives. This need not be limited to the Issues Paper on which the Green Paper is based - in fact free rein is encouraged. The public consultation remains open until 30 April.

http://ec.europa.eu/transport/infrastructure/consultations/2009_04_30_ten_t_green_paper_en.htm

Posted by iroronan at February 16, 2009 10:51 PM