WRITTEN QUESTION E-2455/01

by Camilo Nogueira Román (Verts/ALE) to the Commission

(11 September 2001)

Subject: The laying of the first sleeper of the Ferrol-Tui railway, and the highspeed link between Galicia, Portugal and Central Europe

Last July, the Spanish Prime Minster and the President of the Government of Galicia, attended an ostentatiously prepared and organised ceremony to lay the first sleeper of a dozen kilometres of highspeed railway between Ferrol and the Portuguese border, which in principle forms part of the intermodal Ferrol to Lisbon project within the Transeuropean Networks. Only three months after the Galician elections,

the Galician and Spanish authorities are presenting the building of this tiny stretch as the beginning of the highspeed rail link between Galicia, Porto and Lisbon, Madrid and Central Europe, taking it for granted that European Union co-funding is to be forthcoming under the programmes for 200-2006. In the face of these claims, the Portuguese Government is raising doubts about the construction of the highspeed rail link between Porto and Vigo, apparently preferring to duplicate the centralist option with the Porto-Madrid and Lisbon-Madrid links, while the Spanish Government was not provided any verifiable proof that it plans a genuine highspeed link between Galicia and the rest of Europe, or even that the requisite Spanish and Community budgetary allocations for 2000-2006 for the link itself actually exist. Can the Commission therefore in view of its responsibilities, decisions, and budgetary forecasts provide an answer to the doubts and questions which have been raised, so that the people of Galicia are in possession of proper information and can take whatever democratic decisions they deem necessary on an issue of enormous importance to their future?

Joint answerto Written Questions E-2455/01 and E-2466/01given by Mrs de Palacio on behalf of the Commission

(7 November 2001)

The Commission would refer the Honourable Member to its answers to Written Questions E-2189/01(1) and E-2030/01(2). The only recent development has been the formal adoption by the Commission on 2 October 2001 of a proposal to amend Decision No 1692/96/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 July 1996 on Community guidelines for the development of the trans-European transport network(3) and a proposal to amend Council Regulation (EC) No 2236/95 of 18 September 1995 laying down general rules for the granting of Community financial aid in the field of trans-European networks(4).

These proposals have been sent to Parliament and the Council. The first is designed to focus Community action on a number of new priorities and specific projects, comprising those projects selected by the European Councils of Essen on 9 and 10 December 1994 and Dublin on 13 and 14 December 1996 which have not yet been completed and eight new projects. The second proposal is designed to increase the maximum Community contribution to certain critical trans-European network projects, including railway bottlenecks crossing natural barriers, to 20 % of investment.

As the Commission has already announced in its White Paper European transport policy for 2010(5), the eight projects referred to above include the interoperability of the Iberian high-speed rail network on the basis of the Spanish and Portuguese national plans. As the Honourable Member has already been informed, this project includes Galicia's high-speed rail links.

(1) See page 36.

(2) OJ C 93 E, 18.4.2002, p. 49.

(3) OJ L 228, 9.9.1996.

(4) OJ L 228, 23.9.1995.

(5) COM(2001) 370 final.