The Treaty of the European Union
(E.U.) states that one of the aims of the E. U. is the promotion
of the development of Trans-European networks as a key element
for the creation of the internal market and the reinforcement
of economic and social cohesion.
Following this aim, the European Parliament and Council adopted
Decision
nº1692/96/EC on July 1996. This decision defined
the guidelines for the development of the transeuropean transport
network (TEN-T) and framed the implementation of the network
and the identification of projects of common interest.
This decision was amended as regards as seaports, inland
ports and intermodal terminals by the Decision
nº1346/2001/EC. This amendment emphasises the intermodal
dimension of the network, involving seaports and inland ports
completely.
Moreover, in view of the delay in completing the planned
network, the Commission initiated a first
revision of TEN-T Guidelines in October 2001 in the lines
of the White
Paper on a European Transport policy for 2010 (adjuntar
fitxer white_paper_en.doc) to face the new challenges of transport.
It aims to reduce bottlenecks by concentrating investments
on a few horizontal priorities and a limited number of new
specific projects.
Following these guidelines, the Trans-European network (horizon
2010), is planned as follows:
As far as the Trans-European network that affects the Intermed
area is concerned, the final result is planned as following:
A
revision of the TEN-T Guidelines was proposed by the Commission
in June 2003, resulting in the “High level group
on the transeuropean transport network report".
This High-Level Group confirmed the need to reformulate the
trans-European transport network guidelines decided by the
European Parliament and the Council in 1996. The Group affirmed
that the network was characterized by a worrying increase
in congestion, due to the persistence of bottlenecks and of
missing links and a lack of interoperability.
The Group's mandate was to identify priority projects for
the internal market and identified 5 priority projects by
2010 and 22 priority projects by 2020. Moreover, the Group
identified a number of connections with third countries which
are of interest for the development of the European Union's
external trade and in order to improve the transit conditions
of some new Member States. The priority projects selected
by the Group represent funding estimated at €235 billion
between 2003 and 2020.
INTERMED
approves the criteria on which the Report is based, but believes
that the proposals of the report do not reflect and do not
solve the rail needs of the areas of Southern Europe and the
Mediterranean, where the INTERMED ports are located.
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