PLANNING FOR A SUSTAINABLE EUROPE? - TU Berlin

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actual choice considering future network development. This was not the case with the
TINA exercise.
7.5 The Environmental Scoping Exercise on the Warsaw – Budapest Corridor
Many transport experts were aware of the above described deficiencies in the
TINA process and favored alternative, less status-quo oriented transport infrastructure
investment scenarios for Central Europe. A key focus of the critique was that a
comprehensive environmental evaluation should have been undertaken of the overall
network plans.
International transport experts at universities and international
organizations had long argued in favor of carrying out a so-called Strategic
Environmental Assessment (SEA) on the TENs, on the TEN extensions and on the future
Pan-European Transport Network as a whole. Strategic environmental assessment is a
rapidly evolving area of professional practice. SEA can be defined as “a formalized,
systematic and comprehensive process that evaluates the environmental impacts of PPPs
[policies, plans and programs], considers alternatives, includes a written report on the
findings of the evaluation and uses these findings in publicly accountable decision
making” (Therivel, Wilson et al. 1992; Fischer 2002). Even the Commission’s Transport
Directorate has nothing but praise for the method on its own website (Commission of the
European Communities 2002a):
Strategic environmental assessment (SEA) provides information about the
environmental consequences of decisions about policies, plans and programmes. It is
increasingly being applied to transport infrastructure plans. … SEA makes transport
more sustainable. At the European Union level, its importance was recognised at the
1998 meeting of heads of governments (the Cardiff Summit). The European Union
strives to integrate environmental considerations into its own policy making and the