MEPs threaten to sink TENs funding scheme

Date: 11/07/1996

By Tim Jones and Michael Mann

TWO interlinked battles are coming to a head over who should finance 14 high-profile transport infrastructure projects.

In a surprise volte-face, the European Parliament is threatening to overturn a deal negotiated over six weeks which would have released 1.5 billion ecu to plough into the EU's treasured Trans-European Networks.

Pouncing on the small-print of the Florence summit's conclusions, MEPs have reacted angrily to news that one of the priority projects had been amended without their consent. The Lisbon to Valladolid motorway project has been changed into a so-called 'multi-modal corridor' - combining different modes of transport.

Wilhelm Piecyk, the German Socialist who guided the TENs guidelines through the Parliament, has threatened to urge rejection of the deal he championed when it is voted on in Strasbourg next Wednesday (17 July).

“Changing the priority projects has made co-decision a farce,” said a Parliament official.

MEPs will make their final decision once Transport Commissioner Neil Kinnock and the Irish presidency have clarified whether the Parliament will have a say in the amendment.

The mood will be soured further by the decision of EU finance ministers to set up a group of their most senior representatives to identify savings in the Union's internal policies budget which could be used to help fund the TENs projects.

Ministers from the net contributor states, led by Germany, the UK and the Netherlands, have thrown out the Commission's proposal to redeploy 2 billion ecu from other under-used parts of the budget and sink it into troubled TENs programmes and EU research projects. Germany and the Netherlands, in particular, are adamant that their parliaments and electorates would not be able to stomach increases in Union spending while they are struggling to rein in their budgets to qualify for membership of a single currency zone in less than three years time.

To win them over, Commission President Jacques Santer offered to find savings worth 200 million ecu in 1998-99 budgets in return for an increase in the 5.5-billion-ecu ceiling for internal policies - an area of the budget in which MEPs have a significant say.

Unable to accept even this compromise proposal, finance ministers have given their personal representatives just five weeks to find enough cuts in the internal policies budget or forever lay the idea to rest.

Of the net contributors, so far The Hague has come forward with a detailed proposal aimed at raising the cash needed for the TENs projects.

It estimates that by freezing spending on non-priority projects - such as culture, education and training, energy, the environment, consumer protection and statistics - savings of 700 million ecu could be found in 1998-99.

Since many of these programmes are put in the budget by the Parliament, MEPs can be expected to take a dim view of the plan.

The group will report to member states' ambassadors in the middle of September, with the aim of producing a definitive report in time for the 'informal' meeting of finance ministers in Dublin on 20 September.

An agreement is still possible since the key proposal which aroused opposition, a revision of the EU's financial perspectives, has been all but abandoned. Nevertheless, the prospects for Santer's project remain bleak.

“The civil servants sitting on that group for the ministers of finance will have exactly the same attitude as their ministers,” commented one Dutch official.

While the proposal to set up the group came from Luxembourg's Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, the Irish presidency is determined to make it work.

“It is a way of sorting this out once and for all,” said an Irish official. “The committee will either recommend that money is needed and this is how, or decide that money is not needed. At least we will have a decision and not let it drag on any longer.”