Fuente: © World Bank
http://www.worldbank.org

EU Needs To Invest In Transport Ties With Neighbors: Study

/noticias.info/ Tens of billions of euros need to be spent improving transport links between the European Union and neighboring countries to enhance international trade, a group of experts set up by the European Commission have said, reports Dow Jones.

In a report, published Wednesday, the group recommends that EUR 45 billion should be spent on building roads, expanding waterways and improving sea lanes along five major transnational transport axes connecting the EU with places as far flung as Siberia, the Middle East, and the littoral states of the Caspian and Black Seas.

One of the projects, for instance, would create a so-called "motorway of the sea" linking the Baltic Sea to the Suez Canal via the Atlantic, Mediterranean and Black Seas. The creation of joint border control stations and procedures also would help unblock administrative bottlenecks, easing traffic flows, the report says. Extending Europe's planned Galileo satellite system as well as plans to create a unified system of air traffic management also could help boost transport efficiency.

The group, headed by former EU transport commissioner Loyola de Palacio, includes 53 nations, from Albania to Armenia, and major international financing institutions such as the European Investment Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and the World Bank. The group's goal is to promote the exchange of best practice and to explore the role of public-private partnerships in accelerating the implementation of the projects. Securing the necessary financing is a major obstacle. Around EUR35 billion of the total project costs should be found between now and 2020 primarily from the national budgets of the countries concerned and international financing institutions complemented by EU support, the group said.

De Palacio and Jacques Barrot, her successor at the Commission, are to present the group's recommendations at a meeting of transport ministers from littoral states of the Mediterranean at a meeting in Marrakech, Morocco, on December 15 - 18. notas_de_prensa_archivo