Marathon talks fail to heal TENs rift

Date: 13/06/1996

By Michael Mann

EXTENSIVE EU funding for the Trans-European Networks is increasingly in doubt following a third failure by MEPs and member states to bridge their differences.

After a conciliation committee meeting which ran into the early hours of this morning (13 June), the two sides remained divided over the two central areas of dispute - the Parliament's demand for tighter environmental assessments and the inclusion of a detailed list of priority projects.

Compromise is now crucial when they meet again in Luxembourg on Monday (17 June) in the margins of a routine meeting of EU transport ministers - just two days before the deadline for a deal expires. Without it, EU financing of more than 1.5 billion ecu for the Union's flagship infrastructure projects will remain blocked.

“We still think things can be sorted out. This sort of negotiation always gets held up to the last minute, because people think they can get more as the deadline approaches,” said a Council official.

MEPs will also be hoping that the Council will show more flexibility after transport ministers have discussed the issue at their meeting on Monday.

The next negotiating session will be the last chance to forge a deal to unblock the money. The four-week conciliation procedure designed to settle differences has already been extended by the maximum two-week period allowed under the treaty.

Observers now believe that it should be possible to reach agreement on the environmental aspects of the dispute, which centre on the Parliament's demand for a specific environmental article to be written into the TENs guidelines.

But officials suggest more fundamental problems remain over whether or not a third annex should be written into the TENs guidelines, specifying which schemes should be classified as priority projects.

Ministers are concerned that to do this would amount to giving the Parliament the power of co-decision over areas which should remain the preserve of the member states, including project financing.

“The question of the annex is now purely a political matter. The Parliament no longer has any legal arguments to back its demand for joint powers over the priority projects,” said a member state official, adding that it was now a question of finding some form of declaration that would satisfy MEPs.

In this increasingly bitter inter-institutional power struggle, the Parliament has sought wider influence to determine what form the projects take, while member states insist co-decision powers granted to the Parliament at Maastricht are limited in scope.

On the environmental issue, the Commission has suggested that so-called “Corridor Analyses” should be carried out on sections of the TENs, rather than simply relying on Environmental Impact Assessments carried out within national borders. MEPs want a “Strategic Environmental Assessment” on the whole network. But member states are generally nervous about writing additional environmental legislation into the TENs guidelines, stressing that environmental questions should be considered under existing legal frameworks.