WRITTEN QUESTION E-1693/02

by Concepció Ferrer (PPE-DE) to the Commission

(12 June 2002)

Subject: Barcelona-Vic-Ripoll-Puigcerdà-La Tour de Carol-Toulouse railway line

The December 2001 Commission White Paper on transport in the period up to 2010 establishes three priorities for the railways: to revitalise railways as a strategic sector, to eliminate railway bottlenecks (involving the development of a secondary network to counter the risk of congestion on main lines), and to promote Structural Fund investment in order to improve access to the trans-European network by means of an amendment to the financing rules so as to allow maximum Community participation (up to 20 % in the case of cross-border rail projects which cross natural barriers or eliminate railway bottlenecks).

It should be pointed out that the White Paper acknowledges trans-Pyrenean communications within the trans-European network to be highly restricted (two road passes and two rail ones), particularly by comparison with the situation in the Alps (six road and seven rail passes).

In any event, it would seem that the proposal put forward by the French and Spanish Governments includes only (as regards rail transport) the Zaragoza-Canfanc-Pau line; there is no mention whatsoever of the Barcelona-Puigcerdà-La Tour de Carol-Toulouse line.

In December 2001 the Spanish Parliament's Joint Committee on the European Union adopted a resolution on the White Paper in which it calls for the list of major projects to include more than one rail crossing in the Pyrenees, in order to ensure that the latter remain passable.

Does the Commission not consider that the Barcelona-Vic-Ripoll-Puigcerdà-La Tour de Carol-Toulouse line meets all the eligibility criteria laid down in the White Paper?

Has the Commission considered the possibility of including more than one rail crossing through the Pyrenees amongst the major projects?

Answer given by Ms de Palacio on behalf of the Commission

(11 July 2002)

The existing Barcelona-Vic-Ripoll-Puigcerda-La tour de Carol-Toulouse railway line does not appear on the maps of the trans-European network in Annex I to Decision 1962/96/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(1). This single-track mountain line which runs along ridges at high altitude does not appear to be suitable for development as a major rail link.

On the other hand, in order to facilitate rail traffic across the Pyrenees, the Commission considers it a priority to continue with the specific TGV South project endorsed by the Essen European Council in 1994 and including the Madrid-Barcelona-Montpellier and Madrid-Vitoria-Dax lines. It also believes that given the substantial growth in road traffic between the Iberian peninsula and the rest of Europe, a new high-capacity rail route across the Pyrenees will eventually need to be developed, although the route it will take is not yet known.

The Commission proposal of 2 October 2001(2), amending Decision 1692/96/EC, includes in the list of specific projects set out in Annex III a high-capacity rail link across the Pyrenees. Parliament approved the new Annex III list in the opinion it adopted on 30 May 2002 (second reading).

(1) OJ L 228, 9.9.1996.

(2) OJ C 362 E, 18.12.2001.