PLANNING FOR A SUSTAINABLE EUROPE? - TU Berlin

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The first stage in 2001 … should concentrate on eliminating bottlenecks on the routes
already identified as priorities for absorbing the traffic flows generated by
enlargement, particularly in frontier regions, and improving access to outlying areas.
… [For] the second state in 2004 [t]he idea is to concentrate on a primary network
made up of the most important infrastructure for international traffic and cohesion on
the European continent.
In the entire paper, there is no precise definition of what exactly constitutes a
“bottleneck.” A section entitled “foreseeable bottlenecks”, the White Paper includes
missing border links, single track rail lines, lack of bridges, and limitations on certain
waterways. Other sections speak of urban ring roads. In the end, the clear tenor is to
accommodate rather than manage growth. The European Environment Agency (2001:30)
strongly criticizes this, giving a negative overall assessment to EU transport investments
practices, even noting that the fact that “decisions on transport infrastructure are still
made mainly as a response to problems of traffic bottlenecks [is a] reactive approach
[that] favours extension of the road infrastructure.” It would be naïve to pretend that
bottlenecks can always be addressed though means other than infrastructure expansion.
What is problematic however, is that the Commission should be focusing so vicariously
on so-called international bottlenecks in relation to the TENs, since the actual projects
hiding behind this designation are often the very same large scale industry-lobbied
“missing links” that did not get built (yet) during the 1990s. Here, at a recent conference
on the release of the White Paper, the Secretary General of the ECMT, Jack Short (Short
2001:2) warned the Commission not to overstate the importance of EU funding:
Since a bottleneck is where there are severe problems it is logical that investment
should show high economic rates of return. But it should be understood that
bottlenecks in international traffic might sometimes benefits more from particular
national investments rather than high profile and very expensive international projects.