Building networks from patchworks

Date: 29/02/1996

THE Trans-European Networks are crucial if Europe is to have a clear strategy for its future transport system and achieve a genuine single market.

Without such a network, insists Transport Commissioner Neil Kinnock, the grand idea of promoting cohesion across the EU would remain nothing more than “fine words”.

“What we would end up with without the network strategy is patchworks, with no guarantees of efficient connections and no strategic view of what the transport infrastructure system of the EU should look like,” he says.

The Commissioner's office is home to an impressive array of 'combined transport', ranging from a model Concorde to a humble tandem. Models of a modern TGV side-by-side with Italy's first ever steam locomotive graphically illustrate the extent of the technological revolution he is overseeing.

Kinnock insists that a strategic overview is particularly important for those countries still lacking a properly integrated transport system, as is the need to look beyond the current borders of the Union to Central and Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean.

The most pressing need now, says Kinnock, is to close the gap between the rhetoric in favour of the scheme and the reality of massive shortfalls in financing.

The Commissioner acknowledges that any residual resistance to this among member states is very largely due to nervousness about committing large sums of money, but adds that it is also an “understandable but unacceptable” product of history.

Planning transport networks has traditionally been the responsibility of national governments. Kinnock believes that “there has to be a very significant culture change to convince governments that they stand to gain more in their national systems by efficient interlinking”.

The Commissioner is urging member states to underscore their strong policy commitment with practical action “to achieve a situation in which the product of the whole is greater than the sum of the parts - which is the basic purpose of being part of the Union”.

It is inconceivable that the EU could ever single-handedly fund huge TENs projects, but Kinnock is convinced that the current 'levering fund' should be larger - and confident that it will be.

What is crucial now is that member states become more active in promoting financial partnerships between the public and private sectors. “There is little evidence of governments taking the action necessary to foster such partnerships, although there is a readiness to respond to a lead in parts of the private financial and industrial sectors,” he says.

Precedents for such partnerships already exist in urban tram schemes, although Kinnock admits that these generally involve relatively small sums of money.

The Commissioner believes it is unfair to draw comparisons with the problems experienced with the Channel Tunnel project. “If there had been public sector participation from the outset, its history would have been very different. The lesson to be drawn from this is not that such projects shouldn't be built, but that partnership in funding is absolutely essential.”

Kinnock also defends the Commission's decision to refloat the idea of issuing EU bonds to raise money, despite the rebuff it received last time around. “I think there's force in the argument that the Union could borrow some money - which would never be a huge amount - to spend on our own priorities,” he says, adding that, in the meantime, efforts should be concentrated on the principal financing possibilities.

Far from being an inopportune moment for investment in railway infrastructure, the Commission is convinced that the potential for reward from investment in railways is growing all the time and argues that efforts must be made to quantify those potential rewards and how much investment can realistically be expected.

“The potential for transport gridlock and the opportunity offered by liberalisation have come together to produce the development we need,” says Kinnock.