WRITTEN QUESTION P-4047/00

by Reinhold Messner (Verts/ALE) to the Commission

(20 December 2000)

Subject: Renewal of the motorway concession held by the Brescia-Padua motorway company and the building of the Valtrompia motorway

Without a public call for tenders being issued the agreement between the company holding the concession for the Brescia-Padua motorway and ANAS, the public body which administers the road network in Italy, was renewed for a further 9 years (until 2011).

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 the work carried out in connection with the World Cup in 1990 and the Columbus celebrations in 1992 and any other disputes on which the State legal advisory office must be requested). In this case, however, the justification for the extension was the construction of a new motorway link, known as the Valtrompia motorway. This is a new motorway approximately 30 km long, which would link Gardone Valtrompia with the Brescia-Padua motorway. The concessionaire company has already instructed the Veronese firm Tecnital to plan the execution of the project and has budgeted for an investment of Lit 550 billion ( 284 million) to build the new motorway. However, this estimate is too low if one considers that the current cost of a motorway is around Lit 25-30 billion ( 13-15 million) per kilometre, which casts doubt on the reliability of the cost estimate. The justification for the new motorway is the need to reduce the journey time for heavy goods vehicles serving manufacturing industries in the Valtrompia.

Does the Commission not consider that the renewal of this concession is incompatible with Directives 92/50/EEC, 93/37/EEC and 89/440/EEC(2), in that no European-wide call to tender was issued for the allocation of the concessions?

Does the Commission consider it admissible to justify this extension, without a call for tenders being issued, by means of an exchange in the form of investment in the building of a new motorway?

Does the Commission not consider that to accept such a policy of exchange between concession-holders and the government in favour of new motorways invalidates the decision to give priority to restore a balance between road and rail transport in the European Union?

(1) Directive of the Minister of Public Works and the Minister for the Treasury, the Budget and Economic Planning of 20 October 1998, Protocol No 011790 of the Ministry for the Treasury.

(2) Published in OJ L 209, 24.7.1992, OJ L 199, 9.8.1993 and OJ L 268, 15.9.1989.

Answer given by Mr Bolkestein on behalf of the Commission

(8 February 2001)

The question put by the Honourable Member comes under the more general framework of the procedure for granting motorway concessions in the various Member States. The Commission has asked all Member States to provide detailed information of their position in this respect.

The Commission is in the process of examining information provided by the Italian authorities, and by authorities in the other Member States, so as to establish a coherent position for all the motorway concessions in the Community, bearing in mind the considerable economic and social implications of this issue.

At a meeting with the Italian authorities in Rome on 18 December 2000, the Commission asked for all the necessary information to assess whether the building of a new section of motorway in Valtrompia and the extension of the concession held by the Brescia-Padova motorway concessionaire company to which the Honourable Member refers are in line with Community law on public contracts. If, on examining the above information, the Commission finds that the procedures followed are incompatible with Community Law, it may introduce infringement proceedings under Article 226 (ex-Article 169) of the EC Treaty.

As regards transport policy, Directive 1999/62/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 June 1999, on the charging of heavy goods vehicles for the use of certain infrastructures(1) restricts the amounts of tolls to the costs of constructing, operating and developing the road network. This does not prevent Member States from attributing a percentage of the amount of the tolls to environmental protection and the balanced development of transport networks, provided that this amount does not exceed the set limit. As part of its preparations for the White Paper on the common transport policy, planned for the beginning of this year, the Commission is examining measures to adjust the balance between road and rail transport in the Community, in particular by revising the rules on charges and the funding of infrastructures. These measures should make it possible, in certain justified cases, to use income from road charges to develop rail alternatives.

Moreover, it is important to emphasise that the extension of a motorway concession by a public body, possibly in breach of Community rules on the award of public contracts, should also be examined in light of the rules governing State aids in the transport sector when a beneficiary company is not required to assume the risks and expenditure which would need to be borne by any private investor in a market economy.

(1) OJ L 187, 20.7.1999.