WRITTEN QUESTION P-1378/00

by Reinhold Messner (Verts/ALE) to the Commission

(27 April 2000)

Subject: Asti-Cuneo motorway

The Italian government appears to intend to begin to work on the Asti-Cuneo motorway in the Piedmont region, on the basis of renewal of the concession granted to SATAP (Societá Autostrada Torino-Piacenza). This company will thus be responsible for both the Turin-Piacenza link and the Asti-Cuneo link. No call for tenders has been made. The government has also, by ministerial decree, approved 19 agreements made with concessionaires (in 19 separate ministerial decrees). The Italian Court of Auditors, which has unblocked seven of the 19 conventions between ANAS (the Italian national roads authority) and the 19 concessionaires, has not yet given an opinion on the extension of the concession to SATAP. However, in September 1999 the Counsellor-Delegate of the Court of Auditors responsible for monitoring ANAS wrote to the Italian government expressing the view that the concession granted by the government to SATAP in 1991 is not in conformity with the law, since it took the form of a private transaction, despite the fact that Directive 89/440/EEC(1), under which a public call for tenders is mandatory, was already in force.

Furthermore, in 1993 the Asti-Cuneo project was refused approval by the environmental impact assessment committee of the Italian environment ministry; this decision was reversed by the Italian cabinet, in votes in 1994 and 1999, on the basis of changes to the project which, however, entailed neither a fresh environmental impact assessment nor the republication of the project (which would have allowed the citizens affected by the proposed route to submit their comments).

In the specific case of the Asti-Cuneo link, an appeal is pending before the Administrative Tribunal of the Lazio region concerning the Massimimi-Cuneo stretch. In addition, a judicial inquiry is in progress into SATAP's accounts, following 33 calls for legal investigation of alleged cases of accounting fraud by the company's administrators.

In view of the above, does the Commission not consider that the extension of the motorway concession by the Italian government to SATAP, without a call for tenders, is contrary to Community law, and, in particular, to Directives 92/50/EEC(2), 93/36/EEC(3) and 93/37/EEC(4), and that this extension is undesirable, given that several legal inquiries are under way into the Italian concessionaire's affairs? Does the Commission not also consider that there should be an environmental impact assessment of the new project?

(1) OJ L 210, 21.7.1989. p. 1.

(2) OJ L 209, 24.7.1992, p. 1.

(3) OJ L 199, 9.8.1993, p. 1.

(4) OJ L 199, 9.8.1993, p. 54.

Answer given by Mr Bolkestein on behalf of the Commission

(29 May 2000)

The Commission intends to ask the Italian authorities for all the information needed to assess the compatibility with Community law of the contracts for the construction of the new stretch of the Asti-Cuneo motorway, and of the extension of the concession to the SATAP company, as raised by the Honourable Member. Should the examination of that information reveal that the procedures followed were incompatible with the above-mentioned Community law, the Commission could initiate infringement proceedings pursuant to Article 226 (ex Article 169) of the EC Treaty.

It should, however, be pointed out that this question, and that of the other concessions referred to by the Honourable Member, must be viewed within the more general framework of the motorway concessions in all the Member States, which the Commission is currently studying.

The Italian authorities have already provided the Commission with information on the general regulatory framework governing extensions of existing concessions. Under Ministerial Directive No 283 of 20 October 1998, existing concessions can be extended only if there is a financial settlement of the dispute deriving from the freezing of charges which entitles the concessionaires to a refund. In addition, under the same Ministerial Directive, any motorway concessionaire would be obliged by law, as well as by each individual agreement, to award all works contracts according to the Community award rules, and to award at least 40 % of the work to third parties.

This information, and that from the other Member States, is currently being examined by the Commission with a view to devising a consistent approach to all motorway concessions, having regard to the major economic and social implications of the matter at stake.

As regards the environmental impact assessment, on the basis of the information given by the Honourable Member, the Commission is not in a position to take a view on the subject matter. Should the modified Asti-Cuneo motorway project have been authorised in order substantially to comply with the criticisms made in the original environmental impact assessment (EIA) procedure, it would not necessarily need to have been made the subject of a new EIA procedure. The Honourable Member is kindly requested to give more information on the matter in order to enable the Commission to assess the case.