PLANNING FOR A SUSTAINABLE EUROPE? - TU Berlin

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or the European Investment Bank favor efficiency and growth over equity concerns, and
this certainly also applies to the EU’s transport agenda. International lending criteria give
priority to transport projects for so-called ‘strategic’ infrastructures for high-speed modes
and longer-distance links at the expense of more local, lower-speed, accessibility
enhancing interventions that are more relevant to the life situations to the poorest
segments of the population (for some summary accounts, see Dimitriou 1992; Barter
1998; Hook 1998b). This bias certainly also holds true for the European Union’s
ambitious Trans-European Transport Network program. Kai Lemberg’s (1995) case
study on the decision-making process concerning fixed transport links across the Baltic
Sea in Scandinavia is a perfect example of a political economy approach to EU transport
policy. Lemberg finds that
when analysing benefits and costs of a transportation project or (alternative) networks
we must always ask: to the benefit of whom? and at the cost of whom? Unfortunately
these questions have not generally been put in the public reports on the three [Trans-]
European links in Denmark.
(p. 281)
Interestingly, Lemberg’s case study shows that a political majority for (more
environmentally sustainable) bored railway tunnels was converted into a majority for
combined motorway/railway bridges mainly through the effective lobbying efforts of the
European Roundtable of Industrialists. He documents how this organization of large
European companies, with the support of the EC commission, the Danish motor lobby,
and powerful trade union leaders was able to use its resources and connections to
influence the decisions in the Danish national parliament in their favor, although “no
proof has been given that the Great Belt Bridge and the Sound Bridge constitute the most
economical use of resources in transport policy” (Lemberg 1995:284). In the opinion of