EU funds for transport used overwhelmingly for polluting roads in central and eastern Europe

September 6, 2011

Brussels – CEE Bankwatch Network publishes today a study showing that central and eastern European governments have been using EU funds overwhelmingly for road over rail development, ignoring EU calls for decarbonisation of the transport sector. The Commission can make sure that this pattern is not replicated with the next EU Budget (2013-2020) by introducing strict conditionalities in the new Cohesion Policy regulation next month.

“Transport is the only sector of the European economy where GHG emissions are increasing, and rapidly,” says Pavel Pribyl, Bankwatch transport coordinator. “EU member states have committed themselves to gradually decarbonising the sector. But the newest members do not seem to get it: ever since most of them joined the EU in 2007, they have used the bulk of funds available for them for the development of road and air transport, at the expense of the cleaner rail. The EU, holding the purse strings on the expenses, has to do more to prevent this attitude.”

The Bankwatch study [1] analyses how EU regional funds allocated for transport for the period 2007-2013 have been used in four member states: Bulgaria, Estonia, Poland and the Czech Republic. In all countries, expenditures for roads take up the majority of available EU funds for transport: 1.3 billion out of 2 billion Euros for transport have been allocated for roads in Bulgaria; in Poland, 10 out of 19.4 billion Euros go to roads. In both Poland and the Czech Republic, in spite of disproportionately large initial allocations for roads, national governments have additionally attempted to further reallocate rail moneys to roads.

In the Czech Republic and Bulgaria, insufficiently transparent tender procedures, faulty environmental impact assessments for various projects, and the marginalization of civil society in the process of deciding over allocations have also been documented, to the level that makes it plausible that “business and political interests have succeeded in privatizing the public interest,” as the Bankwatch report says.

“In January this year, the Commission called on member states to use regional funds more effectively to promote sustainable transport, even indicating concrete measures national authorities could take in this direction,” explains Pribyl. “But we doubt such a ‘soft’ call, coming past the half of the seven-year budget period, could make any difference. The Commission should act preemptively instead and introduce enough safeguards in the Cohesion Policy regulation to be published this October to make sure that it can punish bad spenders with immediate withdrawal of funds and reward good spenders instead. We fear only a strong stick and carrot approach from the EU can make a difference in our region.”