30.4.2004   

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

L 167/1

(1)

Decision No 1692/96/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council (5) laid down Community guidelines for the trans-European transport network, identifying projects of common interest intended to contribute to the development of that network and, in Annex III, identifying the specific projects to which the European Council attached particular importance at its meetings in Essen in 1994 and in Dublin in 1996.

(2)

Growth in traffic, in particular due to the growing share of heavy goods vehicles, has resulted in increased congestion and bottlenecks on international transport corridors. In order to ensure international mobility of goods and passengers, it is therefore necessary to optimise the capacity of the trans-European transport network.

(3)

The Gothenburg European Council in 2001 invited the Community institutions to adopt revised guidelines for the trans-European transport network, with a view to giving priority, where appropriate, to infrastructure investment for railways, inland waterways, short sea shipping, intermodal operations and effective interconnections. In this framework, the contribution of inland waterways ports and regional airports to the objectives of the trans-European transport network should not be underestimated.

(4)

The forthcoming enlargement of the European Union and the objective of shifting the balance between transport modes and achieving an infrastructure network capable of meeting growing needs, together with the fact that it could take over ten years to complete some of the priority projects, call for re-examination of the list of projects in Annex III to Decision No 1692/96/EC.

(5)

Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Cyprus, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, the Slovak Republic, Slovenia, and Turkey have concluded association agreements and Europe agreements and have applied for membership of the European Union. The transport administrations of eleven of these countries have carried out, with the support of the Commission, a transport infrastructure needs assessment aimed at defining a network according to the same principles as laid down in Decision No 1692/96/EC.

(6)

The Barcelona European Council in 2002 underlined the objective of reducing bottlenecks in regions such as the Alps, the Pyrenees and the Baltic Sea.

(7)

The Brussels European Council in December 2003 stressed that the priority projects identified in the guidelines are crucial to the strengthening of Internal Market cohesion, especially in view of the forthcoming enlargement of the Union and of the need to remove bottlenecks and/or complete missing links for the movement of goods (transit) across natural or other barriers or across borders.

(8)

The second Pan-European Transport Conference in Crete in 1994 and the third Pan-European Transport Conference in Helsinki in 1997 identified ten pan-European transport corridors and four pan-European areas as priorities for cooperation between the European Community and the third countries concerned.

(9)

In its report submitted to the Commission on 30 June 2003, the High-Level Group on the trans-European transport network (hereinafter "the High-Level Group") identified a limited number of priority projects using a methodology based on criteria which include, in particular, their potential economic viability, the degree of commitment on the part of the Member States concerned to keeping to a timetable agreed in advance in the programming of projects, their impact on the mobility of goods and persons between Member States, and their impact on cohesion and sustainable development. The report also includes projects in the new Member States which will join the Union on 1 May 2004. The results of such cooperation should be taken into account.

(10)

Environmental protection requirements should be integrated into the definition and implementation of Community policy in the field of the trans-European networks in accordance with Article 6 of the Treaty. This entails the promotion as a priority of infrastructure for transport modes that cause less damage to the environment, namely rail transport, short sea shipping and inland waterways shipping.

(11)

It is necessary to implement the central objective of decoupling the negative effects of transport growth from growth in GDP, as the Commission proposed in its communication on a European Union strategy for sustainable development.

(12)

Environmental assessment pursuant to Directive 2001/42/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 June 2001 on the assessment of the effects of certain plans and programmes on the environment (6) will in the future be carried out for all plans and programmes leading to projects of common interest. Funding for transport infrastructure should also be conditional on compliance with the provisions of Community environmental legislation, in particular Council Directive 85/337/EEC of 27 June 1985 on the assessment of the effects of certain public and private projects on the environment (7) and Council Directives 79/409/EEC of 2 April 1979 on the conservation of wild birds (8) and 92/43/EEC of 21 May 1992 on the conservation of natural habitats and of wild fauna and flora (9).

(13)

The Commission White Paper on the European transport policy calls for an integrated approach combining, inter alia, measures to revitalise the rail sector, in particular for freight services, to promote inland waterway shipping and short sea shipping, to encourage greater complementarity between high speed rail and air transport and to promote the development of interoperable intelligent transport systems in order to ensure increased network efficiency and safety.

(14)

The efficiency of the common transport policy depends, inter alia, on the coherence of measures to revitalise the rail sector and to develop the rail infrastructure. Directive 2001/12/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 February 2001 amending Council Directive 91/440/EEC on the development of the Community's railways (10) provides for a Trans-European Rail Freight Network open to international freight transport services after 2003. The lines of the trans-European Rail Freight Network should be considered as part of the rail network defined by the guidelines set out in Decision No 1692/96/EC so that they can benefit from investments and attract traffic from the road.

(15)

Within the general objective of ensuring the sustainable mobility of persons and goods, mechanisms should be put in place to support the development of motorways of the sea between Member States in order to reduce road congestion and/or improve access to peripheral and island regions and States. Establishment of such mechanisms, backed up, inter alia, by tendering procedures, should be transparent and geared to needs and should in no way prejudice the Community rules on competition or on public procurement.

(16)

Support for the development of the motorways of the sea should be seen as complementary to the provision of Community aid as an incentive to the development of short sea shipping operations under the Marco Polo Programme established by Regulation (EC) No 1382/2003 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 July 2003 on the granting of Community financial assistance to improve the environmental performance of the freight transport system (Marco Polo Programme) (11) and should be based on the same criteria. However, the granting of Community financial assistance under the two instruments should not be cumulative.

(17)

There is a need for declaring priority projects to be of European interest, for concentrating Community financing on such projects and for introducing mechanisms to encourage coordination between Member States in order to facilitate completion of the projects within the desired timetable.

(18)

In accordance with Article 154 of the Treaty, the trans-European network policy should help to strengthen economic and social cohesion within the Community. In order to achieve this objective, efforts should be made to maximise consistency between the Community guidelines for the trans-European transport network and the programming of the relevant financial instruments available at Community level.

(19)

A posteriori evaluation of the priority projects should facilitate future revisions of the guidelines and of the list of priority projects and should help improve the a priori evaluation methods practised by the Member States.

(20)

A situation in which national procedures for the assessment of the environmental and socio-economic impact of a project are carried out separately by Member States may prove to be inappropriate to the transnational dimension of projects declared to be of European interest. In order to resolve this, coordinated evaluation and public consultation procedures or transnational enquiry procedures covering the different Member States concerned and focusing on the socio-economic and environmental aspects should be developed, in addition to joint evaluation methods. These procedures should apply without prejudice to the obligations imposed by the Community legislation on environmental protection.

(21)

Closer coordination between the States involved in projects on the same route may be necessary to improve the return on investments and to make it easier to synchronise investments and to put together a funding package.

(22)

Cross-border sections should be identified by Member States on the basis of criteria to be defined by the Committee set up under Article 18(2) of Decision No 1692/96/EC. The existing references to cross-border sections of the priority projects included in Annex III to that Decision should not prejudge the definition of cross-border sections according to these criteria.

(23)

The Commission has conducted an analysis of the impact of the recommendations made by the High-Level Group. The results show that carrying out the projects identified by the Group, combined with several of the measures under the Common Transport Policy, such as charging for the use of infrastructure and opening up rail freight to competition, would produce significant benefits in terms of time savings, lower emissions and less congestion, better access to peripheral Member States and to the new Member States, and greater general well-being.

(24)

In order to comply with the objectives of the trans-European transport network and to meet the transport challenges of enlargement, a considerable increase in appropriations for the trans-European networks is needed.

(25)

The Commission might decide to propose to the European Parliament and the Council that it is necessary to take forward projects other than those included in Annex III of Decision No 1692/96/EC in order to pursue objectives to boost growth, to better integrate an enlarged Europe and to improve the productivity and competitiveness of European business on global markets, as well as to contribute to the objective of economic, social and territorial cohesion and to intermodality. These projects should be given appropriate priority within the context of Community financing instruments.

(26)

Decision No 1692/96/EC should therefore be amended accordingly,

1)

in Article 2(1), the date "2010" shall be replaced by "2020";

2)

Article 3(2) shall be replaced by the following:

3)

Article 5 shall be replaced by the following:

"Article 5

Priorities

Taking into account the objectives set out in Article 2 and the broad lines of measures set out in Article 4, the priorities shall be:

4)

Article 8 shall be replaced by the following:

"Article 8

Environmental Protection

1.   When projects are planned and carried out, environmental protection must be taken into account by the Member States by carrying out, pursuant to Council Directive 85/337/EEC, environmental impact assessments of projects of common interest which are to be implemented and by applying Council Directives 79/409/EEC of 2 April 1979 on the conservation of wild birds (12) and 92/43/EEC.

As from 21 July 2004 an environmental assessment of the plans and programmes leading to such projects, especially where they concern new routes or other important nodal infrastructure development, shall be carried out by Member States pursuant to Directive 2001/42/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 June 2001 on the assessment of the effects of certain plans and programmes on the environment. (13). Member States shall take the results of this environmental assessment into account in the preparation of the plans and programmes concerned, in accordance with Article 8 of that Directive.

2.   By 21 July 2004, the Commission shall, in agreement with Member States, develop suitable methods for implementing the strategic environmental assessment with the objective of ensuring, inter alia, appropriate coordination, avoiding duplication of effort, and achieving simplification and acceleration of planning processes for cross-border projects and corridors.

The results of this work and of the environmental assessment of the TEN projects carried out by Member States pursuant to Directive 2001/42/EC shall be taken into account, as appropriate, by the Commission in its report on the guidelines and the possible accompanying legislative proposals to revise the guidelines provided for in Article 18(3) of this Decision.

(13)  OJ L 197, 21.7.2001, p. 30.";"

5)

in Article 9, paragraph 3 shall be replaced by the following:

6)

Article 10 shall be replaced by the following:

"Article 10

Characteristics

1.   The rail network shall comprise high-speed rail lines and conventional rail lines.

2.   The high-speed rail network, whether using current or new technology, shall comprise:

The high-speed rail network shall consist of the lines indicated in Annex I. Essential requirements and technical specifications for interoperability applicable to high-speed rail lines using current technology shall be defined in accordance with Council Directive 96/48/EC of 23 July 1996 on the interoperability of the trans-European high-speed rail system (14). Member States shall give the Commission prior notice of the opening of any high-speed line and of the line's technical characteristics.

3.   The conventional rail network shall comprise lines for the conventional transport by rail of passengers and freight, including the rail segments of the trans-European combined transport network referred to in Article 14, access links to sea and inland ports of common interest and those freight terminals which are open to all operators. Essential requirements and technical specifications for interoperability applicable to the conventional rail lines are defined in accordance with Directive 2001/16/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 March 2001 on the interoperability of the trans-European conventional rail system (15).

4.   The rail network shall include the infrastructures and the facilities which enable rail and road and, where appropriate, maritime services and air transport services to be integrated. In this regard, particular attention shall be paid to the connection of regional airports to the network.

5.   The rail network shall fulfil at least one of the following functions:

6.   The rail network shall offer users a high level of quality and safety, by virtue of its continuity and of the gradual implementation of its interoperability, which shall be brought about in particular by technical harmonisation and the ERTMS harmonised command and control system recommended for the European railway network. To this end, a deployment plan, coordinated with national plans, shall be established by the Commission in consultation with the Member States.

(15)  OJ L 110, 20.4.2001, p. 1.";"

7)

Article 11 shall be amended as follows:

8)

the following Article shall be inserted:

"Article 12a

Motorways of the sea

1.   The trans-European network of motorways of the sea is intended to concentrate flows of freight on sea-based logistical routes in such a way as to improve existing maritime links or to establish new viable, regular and frequent maritime links for the transport of goods between Member States so as to reduce road congestion and/or improve access to peripheral and island regions and States. Motorways of the sea should not exclude the combined transport of persons and goods, provided that freight is predominant.

2.   The trans-European network of motorways of the sea shall consist of facilities and infrastructure concerning at least two ports in two different Member States. The facilities and infrastructure shall include elements, in at least one Member State, such as the port facilities, electronic logistics management systems, safety and security and administrative and customs procedures, as well as infrastructure for direct land and sea access, including ways of ensuring year-round navigability, in particular the availability of facilities for dredging and icebreakers for winter access.

3.   Waterways or canals, as identified in Annex I, which link two European motorways of the sea, or two sections thereof, and make a substantial contribution to shortening sea routes, increasing efficiency and saving shipping time shall form part of the trans-European network of motorways of the sea.

4.   The projects of common interest of the trans-European network of motorways of the sea shall be proposed by at least two Member States and shall be geared to actual needs. The projects proposed shall in general involve both the public and private sectors in accordance with procedures which, before aid granted from the national budgets can be supplemented, if necessary, by aid from the Community, provide for a tendering process in one of the following forms:

5.   The projects of common interest of the trans-European network of motorways of the sea:

6.   The Commission shall, within three years, submit to the Committee referred to in Article 18 an initial list of specific projects of common interest, thereby putting the concept of the motorways of the sea into concrete form. This list shall also be communicated to the European Parliament.

7.   The projects of common interest of the trans-European network of motorways of the sea shall be submitted to the Commission for approval";

9)

the following paragraph shall be added to Article 13:

10)

the following Section shall be inserted:

"SECTION 10a

COORDINATION BETWEEN MEMBER STATES

Article 17a

European Coordinator

1.   In order to facilitate the coordinated implementation of certain projects, in particular cross-border projects or sections of cross-border projects included among the projects declared to be of European interest referred to in Article 19a, the Commission may designate, in agreement with the Member States concerned, and after having consulted the European Parliament, a person called the "European Coordinator". The European Coordinator shall act in the name of and on behalf of the Commission. The remit of the European Coordinator shall normally relate to a single project, especially in the case of a cross-border project, but may, if necessary, be extended to cover the whole of a major axis. The European Coordinator shall draw up together with the Member States concerned a work plan for his/her activities.

2.   The European Coordinator shall be chosen, in particular, on the basis of his/her experience of European institutions and knowledge of issues relating to the financing and the socio-economic and environmental evaluation of major projects.

3.   The Commission decision designating the European Coordinator shall specify how he/she is to perform the tasks referred to in paragraph 5.

4.   The Member States concerned shall cooperate with the European Coordinator and give him/her the information required to perform the tasks referred to in paragraph 5.

5.   The European Coordinator shall:

6.   Without prejudice to the applicable procedures laid down in Community and national law, the Commission may request the opinion of the European Coordinator when examining applications for Community funding for projects or groups of projects for which the European Coordinator is responsible.";

11)

Article 18 shall be amended as follows:

12)

Article 19 shall be replaced by the following:

"Article 19

Priority projects

1.   The priority projects shall be projects of common interest referred to in Article 7 where examination confirms that they:

2.   The priority projects on which work is due to start before 2010, the sections thereof and the dates agreed for completing the work referred to in paragraph 1(g) are set out in Annex III.

3.   By 2010 the Commission shall draft a progress report and, if necessary, propose amendments to the list of priority projects identified in Annex III in line with paragraph 1.";

13)

the following Articles shall be inserted:

"Article 19a

Declaration of European interest

1.   The priority projects identified in Annex III are declared to be of European interest. This declaration is made solely in accordance with the procedure laid down in the Treaty and in the legal acts based thereon.

2.   Without prejudice to the legal basis of the Community financial instrument in question:

3.   When forecasting its financial needs, the Commission shall give appropriate priority to the projects declared to be of European interest.

4.   In the event of a significant delay, in relation to the deadline of 2010, in starting work on one of the projects declared to be of European interest, the Commission shall ask the Member States concerned to give the reasons for the delay within three months. On the basis of the reply given, the Commission shall consult all the Member States concerned in order to solve the problem which has led to the delay.

The Commission may, in consultation with the Committee set up under Article 18(2), and as part of its active monitoring of the implementation of the project declared to be of European interest and having due regard to the principle of proportionality, decide to adopt appropriate measures. The Member States concerned shall be given the opportunity to submit observations on such measures before their adoption.

The European Parliament shall be informed immediately of any measure taken.

In adopting these measures, the Commission shall take due account of the share of responsibility for the delay of each Member States concerned and shall refrain from taking measures that would affect the realisation of the project in Member States not responsible for the delay.

5.   In the event that a project declared to be of European interest is not substantially completed within a reasonable period of time after the expected date of its completion indicated in Annex III, and all Member States concerned are responsible for the delay, the Commission shall review the project, in accordance with the procedure referred to in paragraph 4, with a view to withdrawing its classification as a project declared to be of European interest by means of the revision procedure referred to in Article 18(3). The Commission shall, in any event, review the project at the end of a period of fifteen years after it has been declared to be of European interest within the meaning of this Decision.

6.   Five years after completion of a project declared to be of European interest or of one of the sections thereof, the Member States concerned shall carry out an assessment of its socio-economic impact and its impact on the environment, including its impact on trade and the free movement of persons and goods between Member States, on territorial cohesion and on sustainable development. Member States shall inform the Commission of the results of this assessment.

7.   Where a project declared to be of European interest includes a cross-border section which is technically and financially indivisible, the Member States concerned shall coordinate their procedures for assessing the socio-economic effects thereof and use their best endeavours to conduct a transnational enquiry prior to granting construction permission and within the existing framework.

8.   Other sections of projects of European interest will be coordinated bilaterally or multilaterally by the Member States on a case by case basis.

9.   The coordinated actions or transnational enquiries referred to in paragraph 7 shall apply without prejudice to the obligations imposed by the Community legislation on environmental protection, and particularly those relating to environmental impact assessment. The Member States concerned shall inform the Commission when such coordinated actions or transnational enquiries are launched and of the results. The Commission shall include that information in the report referred to in Article 18(3).

Article 19b

Cross-border sections

In the context of certain priority projects, cross-border sections between two Member States, including motorways of the sea, shall be identified by the Member States on the basis of criteria defined by the Committee set up under Article 18(2) and notified to the Commission. These will be, notably, sections which are technically and financially indivisible or to which the Member States concerned commit themselves jointly and for which they put in place a common structure.

(18)  Council Regulation (EC) No 1267/1999 of 21 June 1999 establishing an Instrument for Structural Policies for Pre-accession (OJ L 161, 26.6.1999, p. 73). Regulation as last amended by Regulation (EC) No 2500/2001 (OJ L 342, 27.12.2001, p. 1).";"

14)

Articles 20 and 21 shall be deleted.

15)

The Annexes shall be amended as follows: