PLANNING FOR A SUSTAINABLE EUROPE? - TU Berlin

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links are investigated in any further detail here. For equal reasons, the Phare/LISF 6
program is also not presented in greater detail in the present study. It was equally beyond
the scope of this study to include a detailed comparative analysis of the transport-sector
loan activities of the “house bank” of the EU, the European Investment Bank (EIB), in
the CEE region, despite the fact that these loans present highly revealing additional
insights with regard to structural, macro-economic rationalities of the European Union. 7
In the end, it is also important to realize that the two major infrastructure plans
discussed in this chapter, the Pan-European Corridors and the TINA Networks, were
based on initiatives dominated by the Commission’s Transport Directorate and by
national transport ministries, while the subsequent ISPA program which disburses the
EU’s pre-accession infrastructure funds in the area of transport is administered by the
Regional Policy directorate, DG REGIO. Throughout the various initiatives, we will
witness varying conflicts of interests not only between the EU and the CEE candidate
countries, but also within different elements of the EU multi-level governance structure,
as well as with other outside actors.
6 LISF stands for Large Scale Infrastructure Facility. It only had a short life-span within the overall Phare
program. The LSIF was conceived in light of the need to restructure the Phare program in order to better
coordinate it with the emerging pre-accessing fund strategy, which culminated in the ISPA fund. In
essence, the LSIF was intended as a trial-run for the ISPA grant program.
7 Suffice to say that while in theory, the EIB is an EU institution accountable to both general EU policy
directives and specific investment priorities, in practice, EIB investments are guided by a curious mix of
“bankability”-considerations related to rationales derived from neo-classical economic theory and more
political considerations relating to the EIB’s overall mission of promoting European integration. (The latter
are mostly unstated and hardly referred to in official loan approval statements, of course.) Insisting on its
semi-independent status as an investment bank, the EIB also never officially agreed to restrict its transport
lending activities in the region to the priority projects identified through the TINA and ISPA processes.
Nevertheless, considerable cooperation and co-funding between ISPA and EIB transport projects occurs.
For a detailed case study on these EIB investment rationales in comparison to other international
development banks like the World Bank or the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, see
(HELCOM 2000). For radial and up-to-date critiques of the overall EIB approach, and particularly its lack
of transparency, see www.bankwatch.org