EU Roads headed in
the Wrong Direction
In October 1999, the Central and Eastern
European countries awaiting accession to
the European Union were treated to a
Brussels-style vision of how the region’s
transport systems should look in the
Transport Infrastructure Needs Assessment
(TINA) report. TINA took a look at
contemporary and future maps of Europe and
made plans for the massive development of
roads, railways and associated
infrastructure in the countries preparing
to join the EU. The plan was that motorways
should predominate in opening up CEE
countries for the good of the European
Union, rendering this region compatible
with the massive and highly developed
Western European communications and trade
networks. Today, TINA’s rather ugly vision
is borne out as transport projects in the
CEE region get the go-ahead, accompanied by
environmental impact assessments that make
pleasant PR speeches but little impact.
The TINA report laid down the law for
how accession countries should adapt in
order to optimize their compatibility with
the European Union’s own Trans-European
transport Networks (TENs). TENs have long
been a favourite fantasy of oil and
automobile industry lobbyists. The European
Roundtable of Industrialists (ERT), a
highly influential and secretive corporate
lobby group, had pushed for something like
the TENs scheme since their "Missing Links"
paper was published in 1984. TENs represent
maximized mobility for maximized trade
across the continent, and maximum profits
for industrial giants like Shell, BP and
Daimler-Benz. The ERT’s wishes were finally
fulfilled when it helped to put together
the Trans-European Networks as a part of
the EU Commission’s Motorways Working
Group.
Financing for the TENs in the CEE region
has come from the EU’s PHARE and ISPA
structural funds, both of which have
funding criteria that effectively exclude
all but the largest of infrastructure
projects. It is probably no great surprise
then that Brussels-based construction lobby
groups like FIEC, the European Construction
Industry Federation, and the European
Construction Forum are not calling for more
bicycle lanes or supporting local public
transport schemes, but are firmly behind
the TENs.
EU Revved Up and Ready to Go
The European Union currently aims for
transport policies that serve the
infrastructure needs and economic
imperatives of the Single Market, and the
economic and monetary union has only
increased problems relating to high-speed
free trade. But while economists draw
graphs and talk of "global competitiveness
and labour market flexibility", Central and
Eastern Europe will get its first taste of
closer ties with the EU in the grey and
grit of mammoth road-building schemes like
the D8 highway in the Czech Republic and
the A2 and A4 highways in Poland.
The European Commission sung the praises
of TENs using the Keynesian theory that
investment equals job creation. The
Commission’s promise that TENs would bring
both economic growth and social cohesion
was largely based on studies by the
European Centre for Infrastructure Studies
(ECIS), an organization created in 1993 by
the European Roundtable of Industrialists.
ECIS was given a mission to "accelerate the
construction of Trans-European
infrastructure Networks’, which it did
thanks to the close relationships between
its many industrialist members and the
Commission. This professed link between
roads and jobs continues to form an
integral part of the EU’s argument for
motorway extensions in the east. At a
European Investment Bank press conference
on TENs in February of this year, Transport
Commissioner De Palacio again repeated the
road builders’ mantra that transport growth
and economic growth go hand in hand.
Environmental groups and researchers in
the fields of transport and economics paint
a different picture, however. CEE green
groups have found allies among transport
economists who point to the dangers of
believing that more motorways bring
sustainable economic growth and social
cohesion. The landmark study is probably
the 1998 UK government report by the
Standing Advisory Committee on Trunk Road
Assessment, which offered no evidence of
the connection between transport schemes
and economic benefits.
As the enlargement process gathers
speed, dialogue with citizens and proper
long-term strategizing has been sacrificed
in the rush to lay concrete. Under pressure
from environmentalist critics, the EU’s
Directorate General for Transport and
Energy has started to emphasize a
commitment to rail rather than road, but
this talk is yet to be manifested in
practice. A new Commission White Paper on
Transport, along with revised TENs
guidelines, has been repeatedly delayed.
All stakeholders in the eastwards expansion
of the EU’s transport infrastructure are
now waiting with bated breath to see what
transpires.
Among the reasons why the current
planning for Eastern European accession
countries is wrong-headed is the legacy of
environmental damage and missed
opportunities of TENs in Western Europe.
Learning from the failures of transport
policy in the West that bigger doesn’t
necessarily mean better, and that more
roads do not equal sustainable development,
should be the basis for reconstruction and
development in the East. Unfortunately,
that is presently not the case.
Howard Mollett and Magda
Stoczkiewicz,
FoE Europe
