WRITTEN QUESTION P-0633/02 by Reinhold Messner (Verts/ALE) to the Commission. Renewal of the motorway concession held by the Brescia-Padua motorway operating company and the building of the Pedemontana Veneta Ovest section of motorway (from Montebello to Thiene).
Date: 2002-03-04
Institutions: European Parliament, Provisional data
Subjects: Italy, appeal to an administrative authority, application of EU law, award of contract, contract, motorway, road building, service concession

29.8.2002

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

C 205 E/181

(2002/C 205 E/193)

WRITTEN QUESTION P-0633/02

by Reinhold Messner (Verts/ALE) to the Commission

(4 March 2002)

Subject: Renewal of the motorway concession held by the Brescia-Padua motorway operating company and
the building of the Pedemontana Veneta Ovest section of motorway (from Montebello to Thiene)

Without a public tendering procedure being held the agreement between the company holding the
concession for the Brescia-Padua motorway and ANAS, the public body which runs the Italian road
network, was renewed for another 9 years.

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 work carried out
for the 1990 football World Cup and the 1992 Columbus International Exposition, and any other disputes
on which the opinion of the State legal advisory office must be requested). In this case, however, the
justification for the extension seems to be the fact that the concessionaire has been assigned to building a
number of new sections of motorway, included in the agreement and financial statement. These new
projects include the Pedemontana Veneta Ovest, which is to link the A4 (at Montebello Vicentino) and the
A31 (at Thiene) by means of a stretch of motorway 27,4 km long, plus 19 km of access roads. The
estimated cost is Lit 540 661 000 000 (about EUR 280 million). This motorway is not merely a ‘link’
between the A4 and the A31, which are already linked to each other at the Vicenza north exit, but a new
motorway to be added to the Valtrompia and Valdastico motorways, which are also envisaged in the
financial statement of the Brescia-Padua motorway concessionaire, on which the questioner has already
tabled questions to the Commission (E-0371/01 (2) and E-4047/00 (3)) (4).

Can the Commission ascertain whether or not the Pedemontana Veneta Ovest motorway (Montebello
Vicentino to Thiene) is a new project, for which the extension of the concession cannot be justified
without a call to tender being issued?

(1) Directive of the Minister for Public Works, together with the Ministry for the Treasury, the Budget and Economic

Planning of 20.10.1998, Protocol No 011790 of the Ministry for the Treasury.

(2) OJ C 235 E, 21.8.2001, p. 189.
(3) OJ C 174 E, 19.6.2001, p. 220.
(4) The investments for new projects authorised in the concessionaire’s financial statement amount to a total of

Lit 2 466 billion (EUR 1 273 million).

Answer given by Mr Bolkestein on behalf of the Commission

(27 March 2002)

The Commission has already asked the Italian authorities for information on the extension of
the
motorway concession accorded to the ‘Società per l’autostrada Brescia-Verona-Vicenza-Padova’. The Italian
authorities have informed it that this extension is not for the construction of a new motorway but is
intended to settle the dispute with the authority granting the concession which relates in particular to the
freezing of charges in order to combat inflation, in accordance with the criteria set out in interministerial
directive No 238 of 20 October 1998.

Nonetheless, the Commission intends to ask these authorities for all the information needed to ascertain
whether the award of the construction and running of the ‘Pedemontana Veneta Ovest’ motorway section
to the aforementioned company holding the concession is compatible with Community law.
If, on
examining this information, the Commission finds that the procedure followed is incompatible with
Community standards, it may be relied upon to draw the appropriate conclusions.