PLANNING FOR A SUSTAINABLE EUROPE? - TU Berlin

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program would result in their road sector projects being rejected by the ISPA
management committee, the Hungarian government simply rearranged their ISPA
strategy and excluded the problematic motorways from the list.
In the end, the fact that Hungarian ISPA funding record for the first two years was
90% biased in favor of rail is a highly atypical, special case. More importantly, this ISPA
grant-related imbalance in favor of rail has to be seen in the context of a continued bias in
favor of road projects both in terms of national government funding and IFI loans. Since
railway projects in CEE typically require a broader sectoral approach involving difficult
questions of overall restructuring (including, in most cases, highly politically issues of
downsizing and retraining due to overstaffing), and also since rail investments are
frequently more complicated to justify in terms of strict financial and economic rates of
return, there is always a danger of more international funding going to Helsinki road than
rail corridors, thus further tipping the balance against more sustainable modes. So far,
however, ISPA allocations have been rather evenly balanced between the road and the
rail sectors, with over half of all grants going to rail projects. 31
The European Union will continue to be the major grant financer of transport
infrastructure in Central Eastern Europe. Since this grant funding will typically be used
to leverage additional international funds, this money is likely to have a major influence
on the future concentration of resources in the transport sector in CEE accession
countries, also with regard to the use of IFI loans. The planned progressive
decentralization of the ISPA program means that the CEEC themselves should have
increasing control over the use of the funds, which in turn means that it will be more and
31 Until December 31, 2001, modal allocations for all CEECs were 50.74% for rail, 46.99% for road, 0.21%
for road and rail combined and 2.06% for airports. Also see CEC (2002d).