WRITTEN QUESTION No. 3982/97 by Kenneth COATES to the Commission. Passenger rail services between Britain and continental Europe
Date: 1998-01-14
Institutions: COATES, European Parliament
Subjects: EU financing, European Investment Bank, United Kingdom, carriage of passengers, cross-channel connection, high-speed transport, rail transport, transport infrastructure

C 223/40

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

17. 7. 98

More detailed proposals, including financial information, on the basis of which further decisions will be made by
the  monitoring  committee,  are  awaited.  The  Commission  will  examine  the  detailed  proposals  when  they  are
submitted.

The ministry of Education has proposed to use universities and technological institutes as intermediary agencies,
since, in the existing system, school units cannot be directly involved in implementation. At the last meeting of
the  monitoring  committee,  the  higher  education  institutions  expressed  a  reserve  on  this.  The  ministry  is
examining  the  implementation  structures  and  mechanisms,  which  will  constitute  part  of  the  awaited  detailed
proposal.

The  absorption  rate  of  the  operational  programme  (cid:145)Education  and  Initial  Training(cid:146)  amounts  to  about  27%,
whereas  that  of  sub-programmes  1  (secondary  education),  2  (initial  training),  3  (higher  education)  and
4 (modernisation of the administration of the educational system and technical assistance) are in the region of
17%, 42%, 15.5% and 13% respectively (payments of the Member State as percentages of the overall budget of
the programme).

Apart  from  the  actions  addressed  directly  to  universities  and  technological  institutes,  tertiary  education
institutions  participate  also  in  the  implementation  of  other  actions  for  secondary  education,  as  for  example
(cid:145)information  technologies(cid:146)  and  (cid:145)education  of  students  of  special  categories  (minorities,  immigrants,  repa-
triated)(cid:146). In the above examples, universities are used both as intermediary and implementing agencies. They will
be paid on the basis of incurred expenditure and relevant justifying documents and not on percentages of the
budgets of the actions or lump sum allowances.

(98/C 223/43)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-3982/97

by Kenneth Coates (GUE/NGL) to the Commission

(14 January 1998)

Subject: Passenger rail services between Britain and continental Europe

How  much  European  Union  funding  has  helped  to  pay  for  the  development  of  the  Channel  Tunnel  and  the
associated rail links? How much investment was made by the European Coal and Steel Community?

(98/C 223/44)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-3983/97

by Kenneth Coates (GUE/NGL) to the Commission

(14 January 1998)

Subject: Passenger rail services between Britain and continental Europe

What, if any, European funding has gone to support Eurostar rail services? What is the Commission(cid:146)s view of the
long delay in introducing, and recent reports of the possible abandonment of, direct Eurostar services between
the East Midlands and the North of England and continental Europe?

Joint answer
to Written Questions E-3982/97 and E-3983/97
given by Mr Kinnock on behalf of the Commission

(23 February 1998)

The Community has provided support for the development of the Channel Tunnel and its associated rail links in
the United Kingdom and France through numerous financial instruments since 1982.

In  1983,  the  Community  provided  0.4  MECU  towards  the  costs  of  the  preliminary  evaluation  studies  of  the
Eurotunnel project. In 1987, the European investment bank (EIB) advanced a loan to Eurotunnel of 1.400 MECU
towards the costs of the project itself. It has since lent a further 254.4 MECU.