Key transport links point the way forward

Date: 24/09/1998

By Chris Johnstone

IT USED to be said that after the no-limits motorways of Germany, transport in central and eastern Europe was like going from fifth to first gear in one move.

That was the picture when the Berlin Wall crumbled in 1989, and developing the infrastructure and adapting to formerly alien concepts such as just-in-time delivery and mass tourism is taking time.

In every opinion on the candidates, the EU has stressed the importance of developing transport, with an efficient road system seen as an inevitable corollary of development.

The clearest statement of the applicants' needs was made this year when the European Commission identified key transport links that should be completed over the next 15 years. It put a price tag of around 50 billion ecu on ironing out the bottlenecks, with a minimum of some 20 billion ecu needed to tackle the most immediate problems.

Most of these, such as Nürnberg, Pilsen and Prague, are on priority East-West routes which were little used when the Iron Curtain was in place.

Unfortunately for the applicants, a second message accompanied the first: that most of the money for developments would have to come from the countries themselves. The Com-mission argues this level of spending should be possible, stressing that it is already being exceeded in some countries.

Modernisation of the railways, which still carry a large proportion of cargo compared to those of western Europe, is being encouraged by the Commission in the hope that the network will retain its central role.

Candidate countries are also being offered early access to a European aviation market covering the entire European Economic Area (EEA). Some cannot wait to join. Others, fearful for the future of their national carriers, are pressing for longer transition times.