PLANNING FOR A SUSTAINABLE EUROPE? - TU Berlin

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The rest of this chapter is organized as follows: the next section first situates ISPA
within the longer history of EU and IFI transport sector assistance to Poland and
Hungary. After a general introduction to ISPA and its funding priorities, I then move on
to the two case studies. In both cases, I precede my analysis of the gestation of the
National ISPA Strategy Documents and the priority lists with a discussion of each
country’s key transport infrastructure needs national transport policies. I offer both
preliminary conclusions at the end of each individual case study as well as a set of
concluding remarks at the very end of the chapter.
8.2 EU and IFI Transport Sector Assistance to Poland and Hungary Pre-ISPA
8.2.1 IFI Transport Sector Loans to Poland and Hungary (1990-2001)
IFI co-financing, particularly with the EIB, has been an explicit aim of the ISPA
program. A detailed overview of past IFI funding to Poland and Hungary between 1990
and 2001 is presented in Annex I. Also, detailed analyses of the different roles that the
EIB, the EBRD and the World Bank have played in transport sector funding in CEE have
been presented elsewhere (see especially CEE Bankwatch Network 1997; Feiler and
Stoczkiewiecz 1999; Hook and Peters 1999), and thus need not be repeated here.
However, in order to be able to better assess the magnitude and the importance of these
international investments in relation to ISPA, I nevertheless want to focus on a few key
points that emerge from the data in the various tables in Annex I.
European Union standards, the INTERBUS agreement, a Law on Road Transport , a Law on working time
for drivers, a Law on taxes and local charges, a new Law on railway transport (which includes the creation
of a new Railways Transport Office), a regulation on allocation for railway undertakings, and a Law on
commercialization, restructuring and privatization of the Polish Railway Company PKP. Hungary also
passed the INTERBUS agreement, separated the accounting of railway infrastructure from the accounting
of railway operations, aligned safety belt legislation and the rules for admission to the occupation of road
haulage operation.