PLANNING FOR A SUSTAINABLE EUROPE? - TU Berlin

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of the politically defined corridor approach taken at the Pan-European Transport
conferences. As the TINA report clearly states (p.14 and p.25):
The [TINA] backbone network … was defined by the Commission, so as to be identical
with the links and nodes of the ten multi-modal Pan-European Transport Corridors on
the territory of the TINA countries. The routing of the Crete/Helsinki corridors was
provided by the TINA Secretariat, using relevant information from the Steering
Committee or other working groups of the Crete/Helsinki Corridors, and by consulting
the UN TEM and TER offices, etc. It was understood that all parties concerned
agreed on the need for the Corridors so that further economic or financial
justifications were not required.
(My emphasis).
Rather different criteria were set for the potential additional network components,
however. Here, proposals needed to be “accompanied by sufficient information on its
economic viability” (p. 14). Regardless of the existence of these new criteria, however,
early lobbying of Estonia and Latvia, already resulted in the addition of one new major
East-West link from Corridor I towards corridor IX in each country. Additionally, the
criteria concerned the continuity of the links at the borders between TINA countries, at
the borders with NIS and EU countries, as well as the general consistency of the network
structures. The latter was explicitly understood to mean that there should be “no missing
links in the total TEN-TINA network” (p.25). Figures 7.4 and 7.5 show the final
proposed road and rail networks for the candidate countries as presented in the TINA
final report in October 1999. Figures 7.6 and 7.7 provide a more detailed overview of the
selected road and rail infrastructures for Poland and Hungary.