East faces huge bill for improving networks

Date: 21/01/1999

By Simon Taylor

TRANSPORT Commissioner Neil Kinnock has put an estimated 90-billion price tag on bringing the transport infrastructure up to EU standards in the applicant countries of central and eastern Europe.

He warned of the high cost of upgrading the countries' road, rail and other infrastructure over the next decade at a conference on pan-European transport policy last month.

The EU is currently carrying out an extensive exercise to establish the precise needs of the applicant countries as it prepares to extend its Trans-European Networks eastwards.

The process, known as TINA or Transport Infrastructure Needs Assessment, began in 1996 and is not expected to be completed until the middle of this year, when officials from the EU and candidate states will present a report containing recommendations on where to target precious resources.

Despite large-scale financial commitments under the pre-accession structural policies (ISPA), the Union will clearly not be able to provide all these funds outright. The applicants will therefore have to turn to other international lending institutions like the European Investment Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the World Bank and commercial lenders.

As big an issue as the amount of money needed is the balance between different modes of transport which the applicant states should strive for. Despite warnings from environmental groups that concentrating on road links at the expense of rail and canal transport will reproduce the congestion and pollution already seen in major western European conurbations, transport experts in the applicant countries argue that there is a greater need to improve the road network.

They point out that rail links in the former Communist countries are better developed than roads, although they admit that railway systems also need to be modernised.

They reject the argument that when new roads are built or existing ones expanded, traffic simply increases to fill them, pointing out that the Union has accepted the need for better roads in its four poorest member states and dedicated up to 75&percent; of regional aid spending to motorway construction over four years in the early 1990s.

Road-building projects raise other issues about how motorways fit into an integrated transport strategy.

New roads in central and eastern Europe are often built with private finance, leading to heavy tolls to produce a return on investment. These levies may be too high for small-scale, locally owned businesses, so traffic is forced back on to trunk roads, causing congestion and aggravating the problem the motorways were designed to alleviate.

Transport officials from the applicant countries insist that matching the EU's technical and legal rules poses relatively few problems, and that transport operators were already working to international standards before the fall of Communism.

The Commission's screening process, under which each applicant's readiness for membership is examined before negotiations begin, found few problems in the maritime sectors and TENs.

But more are expected to be uncovered in March when officials put rules on road, rail and waterways under the spotlight. Commission experts warn there are still significant gaps in technical areas ranging from lorry weights to safety standards for vehicles. But they predict these problems can be sorted out before any of the applicants join the Union early next century.

The applicant states are, however, likely to ask for more time to comply with EU laws governing the liberalisation of air transport markets. Poland and Hungary are expected to argue that their national carriers are not commercially strong enough to face full competition as soon as they join the Union.