PLANNING FOR A SUSTAINABLE EUROPE? - TU Berlin

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evaluation. 2
What is possible, however, is an evaluation of the general trends with regard
to EU transport investments in the candidate countries. In how far are actual grants for
transport investment projects in line with the sustainability aspects of EU transport
policy? Are there inconsistencies, and if so, why?
The general ISPA objective and grant requirements were formulated by the
Commission in 1998-1999. The candidate countries themselves then had to formulate
their National Strategy documents and prepare individual projects for funding. These
were then submitted to the ISPA Management Committee for approval. 3
By the end of
2000, all National ISPA Transport Strategies and the initial project lists had been
formulated and submitted to the Commission in Brussels. 4
How much the Commission
2 An assessment of other individual projects, e.g. under Phare, however, is certainly possible, and I do, in
fact, discuss both the contrasting investment rationales and the (present and foreseeable) effects of one
particularly controversial EU-supported transport investment project in CEE, namely the Budapest ring
road, in the following chapter. Also note that evaluations of other individual projects are available in the
literature, although comprehensive assessments of both traffic and land use impacts are rare. With regard
to general evaluations, one particular study deserves special mention: in 1999, the now defunct Evaluation
Unit of the Joint Relex Service of the European Commission (SCR) commissioned the Greek consulting
forms TRADEMCO and SYSTEMA, together with the UK Universities Leeds and Westminster, to carry
out “An Evaluation of Phare-Financed Transport Programmes” (Commission of the European Communities
1999d). Their inventory included 75 program contracts (including those from the Phare multi-country
transport program) and 800 individual contracts. The evaluation was based on a retroactive Logical
Framework (LogFrame) approach. However, it did not operationalize the criterion “sustainability” of
investments in any privileged way. (Also note that although LogFrames are supposed to be the standard for
both IFI and EU project design, monitoring and evaluation, LogFrame matrices were not available for all
projects and thus had to be constructed retroactively.) Most of the key findings were related to the general
relevance of the Phare transport programs to the rapidly changing needs of the candidate countries and
general management efficiency, which was found to be generally mediocre to poor mainly due to delay in
project preparation and implementation, deficiencies in coordination between Phare and the IFIs, the
absence of appropriate strategic/pre-investment studies, as well as lack of sufficient progress in the
restructuring of transport operators (see executive summary, pp. v-viii). Many of these deficiencies seem to
still hold for ISPA as well. Secondly, there has also been “An Evaluation of PHARE and TACIS Co-
Financing Programmes with the EBRD” carried out by Maxwell Stamp for SCR (Commission of the
European Communities 1999e). This study, among other things, presents individual evaluations of two
Phare co-financed transport projects to the Bulgarian and Romanian Railways (both from 1996). The
evaluation criteria were “relevance,” “efficiency,” “effectiveness,” “impact,” and “sustainability.” Yet
statements under the latter heading are non-committal: “Since the full, final impact of these projects cannot
yet be determined conclusively, their sustainability remains somewhat indeterminate at this stage” (p.85).
3 The ISPA Management Committee is the EU body with representatives from all member states which
deals with ISPA matters, also see (Commission of the European Communities 1999g).
4 The first ISPA Annual Report (Commission of the European Communities 2001p:10) clarifies that “the
national ISPA strategies are not intended to be legal documents but should rather be seen as tools to guide