‘The transport system employs more than 11 million people across the European Union. It is like our lymphatic system, fundamental to the cohesion of the EU territories. However, it needs to be modernized’. – underlined President of the European Parliament, Antonio Tajani in his keynote address to the conference “Cities and regions developing a territorial-based trans-European transport network” in Brindisi, Italy on 16 June.
The event organised by the EPP Group in the European Committee of the Regions and hosted by its Vice-President, Mauro D’Attis gathered numerous local and regional representatives, transport experts, stakeholders and media from across Europe.
Need for investments and intermodality were expressed by majority of the conference participants, with Antonio Tajani specifically referring to the TEN-T corridors – ‘We need to strengthen ongoing projects on trans-European networks, extending them to other cities like Brindisi’ – a call strongly supported by Mr D’Attis noting that ‘the Italian Adriatic coast which is waiting to be considered in full by the strategic transport priorities of the European Union’ and Italian Junior Minister of Labour and Social Policies, Massimo Cassano calling for Puglia’s role to be more central within the Scandinavian-Mediterranean Corridor.
In his opening remarks Michael Schneider, President of the EPP-CoR Group expressed his conviction that territorial-based TEN-T policy should ensure accessibility and connectivity for all regions of the Union, thus contributing further to their sustainable economic growth and long-term competitiveness – ‘We insist on the need to strengthen the role of local and regional authorities in the political, operational, technical and implementing management bodies of the TEN-T infrastructure projects’ – he underlined.
First of the two panels of the conference discussed how a thriving European Transport strategy can support development and job creation with good examples of Port Authority of Brindisi use of the European Funds, Bratislava’s investment in rail networks or Italian Transport Regulatory Authority in protecting rights of passengers.
In the second panel best practices, investments and European support to regional and local authorities in targeted public and private investments in transport infrastructure and systems were presented. They included examples of innovative financial schemes and instruments successfully implemented in Bulgaria, raised competitiveness of an Italian region with a new highway or positive experiences of Murcia with the Mediterranean Corridor raising its competitiveness and from private sector calling for use of electro-mobility in cities.
Members of the EPP-CoR Group concluded the meeting by adopting a declaration on the topic, underlining that a territorial-based TEN-T policy can only be achieved by properly applying the principles of a bottom-up, multilevel governance approach and subsidiarity encouraging greater synergies between different funding instruments and contributions from supranational, national, regional and local sources, together with public-private partnerships to alleviate this.
Local authorities are keen to deliver real results in this area on the ground, motivated by Antonio Tajani’s words from the conference:
‘Some years from now, our children will look at us. Let us make sure that they judge us on the basis of our achievements, not on our failures’.