Date: Monday 13 November 2023
Europe’s trans-European transport network, or the TEN-T policy, has been promoted by the EU as a key instrument providing the connectedness among EU countries with ‘coherent, efficient, multimodal, and high-quality transport infrastructure across the EU’.
In practice, the pathway towards achieving these goals has been bumpy. Reports show that in the past 25 years European countries have prioritised roads over railways by far.
Often, EU funds, instrumental for the development of the transport network infrastructure, are spent in conflict with EU environmental legislation. This has been the case with the EU-funded Struma motorway in Bulgaria and the unique Kresna gorge, a high-value Natura 2000 site.
The webinar covered the topics of:
- The current state of affairs in transport network infrastructure in Europe;
- European funding for transport: challenges and future scenarios;
- The case study: Bulgaria and its transport networks under the TEN-T policy – priorities and conflicts in Natura 2000 sites.
The panellists – expert in sustainable finance working on transport decarbonization, campaigner on energy, climate and transport on EU level and the transformation of mobility system and expert in EU funds and transport, working on preserving biodiversity in transport infrastructure – shared their research and views on the possible future scenarios in the context of the EU’s ambition for connectedness of all regions by 2050 and TEN-T revision with the European Green Deal and the Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy.
The conclusions are that Europe has directed larger share of public funds to motorways at the expense of rail transport infrastructure. Eastern Europe has far less railway connectivity and transport poverty increases. Public funds need to be directed to low carbon intensive means of transport which also reduces inequality in the society if Europe want to meet EGD targets.
There were 38 people present at the webinar, coming from 14 EU countries (Estonia, Croatia, Hungary, Spain, Germany, Denmark, Slovenia, Malta, Sweden, Latvia, Belgium, Bulgaria, Slovakia and Grece).
