WRITTEN QUESTION P-0633/02

by Reinhold Messner (Verts/ALE) to the Commission

(4 March 2002)

Subject: Renewal of the motorway concession held by the Brescia-Padua motorway operating company and the building of the Pedemontana Veneta Ovest section of motorway (from Montebello to Thiene)

Without a public tendering procedure being held the agreement between the company holding the concession for the Brescia-Padua motorway and ANAS, the public body which runs the Italian road network, was renewed for another 9 years.

On the basis of the Ciampi-Costa directive(1) motorway concessions may be extended by way of exception only in order to settle existing disputes (failure to adjust charges, recognition of work carried out for the 1990 football World Cup and the 1992 Columbus International Exposition, and any other disputes on which the opinion of the State legal advisory office must be requested). In this case, however, the justification for the extension seems to be the fact that the concessionaire has been assigned to building a number of new sections of motorway, included in the agreement and financial statement. These new projects include the Pedemontana Veneta Ovest, which is to link the A4 (at Montebello Vicentino) and the A31 (at Thiene) by means of a stretch of motorway 27,4 km long, plus 19 km of access roads. The estimated cost is Lit 540 661 000 000 (about EUR 280 million). This motorway is not merely a link between the A4 and the A31, which are already linked to each other at the Vicenza north exit, but a new motorway to be added to the Valtrompia and Valdastico motorways, which are also envisaged in the financial statement of the Brescia-Padua motorway concessionaire, on which the questioner has already tabled questions to the Commission (E-0371/01(2) and E-4047/00(3))(4).

Can the Commission ascertain whether or not the Pedemontana Veneta Ovest motorway (Montebello Vicentino to Thiene) is a new project, for which the extension of the concession cannot be justified without a call to tender being issued?

(1) Directive of the Minister for Public Works, together with the Ministry for the Treasury, the Budget and Economic Planning of 20.10.1998, Protocol No 011790 of the Ministry for the Treasury.

(2) OJ C 235 E, 21.8.2001, p. 189.

(3) OJ C 174 E, 19.6.2001, p. 220.

(4) The investments for new projects authorised in the concessionaire's financial statement amount to a total of Lit 2 466 billion (EUR 1 273 million).

Answer given by Mr Bolkestein on behalf of the Commission

(27 March 2002)

The Commission has already asked the Italian authorities for information on the extension of the motorway concession accorded to the Società per l'autostrada Brescia-Verona-Vicenza-Padova. The Italian authorities have informed it that this extension is not for the construction of a new motorway but is intended to settle the dispute with the authority granting the concession which relates in particular to the freezing of charges in order to combat inflation, in accordance with the criteria set out in interministerial directive No 238 of 20 October 1998.

Nonetheless, the Commission intends to ask these authorities for all the information needed to ascertain whether the award of the construction and running of the Pedemontana Veneta Ovest motorway section to the aforementioned company holding the concession is compatible with Community law. If, on examining this information, the Commission finds that the procedure followed is incompatible with Community standards, it may be relied upon to draw the appropriate conclusions.