Synthesis Report - European Commission - Europa

Synthesis Report Ex-post Evaluation of the ERDF 2000-2006
lagging regions in both the EU15 and the EU10, though to a lesser extent in the latter given the
much shorter period involved 30 . The tangible outputs from the investment supported include:
• the co-financing of around 24% of the 8,509 kms of motorway, which were added to the
EU transport network over the programming period, and of around 26% of the 7,734 kms
constructed in the EU15;
• the co-financing of 1,512 kms of new motorway construction in Spain, or half of the total
completed over the period;
• the co-financing of around 300 kms of motorway in Objective 1 regions in Germany;
• the co-financing of most of the Egnatia Odos motorway which extends for 680 kms from
the port of Igoumenitsa in the west of Greece and the border with Turkey and which
reduced travel time between the two by almost half (see Box);
• helping to begin the process of bringing the road network in EU10 countries up to
international standards;
• the co-financing of 27% of new high-speed railway lines in Spain and 25% of those in Italy
constructed over the period;
• the co-funding of the modernisation or upgrading of over 3,000 kms of standard railway
line, or, more, specifically, of 20% of the rail network in Spain and Greece, 8% of the
network in Portugal and 4% of that in Italy;
• the co-financing of the modernisation of 31 airports across the EU;
• the co-financing of 45 projects to improve or expand port facilities, 33 of them in
Objective 1 regions.
Box – Egnatia Odos
The Egnatia Odos project involved the construction of 680 kms of motorway between the port of
Igoumenitsa in the west of Greece and the border with Turkey. This has served to reduce travel
time between the two points from over 11 hours to just over 6 hours. In addition, it has taken
traffic away from congested urban areas, so reducing pollution as well as travel times. The
motorway has bought isolated regions such as Epirus and Western Macedonia closer to the rest of
Macedonia and Thrace, linking 5 NUTS 2 regions, 10 cities, 332 towns and villages, 4 ports and 6
airports. The expectation is that it will boost trade and tourism in all the regions concerned, while
helping to halt rural depopulation.
The result of these outputs was to improve links between regions, as well as between regional
and local road networks and the main national routes, and to reduce journey times substantially
in many cases. In Spain, for example, the new motorways constructed provided high-speed links
between major centres across the country, especially in Andalucía and Galicia. Overall, time
savings of 3.5 millions hours a year were reported by managing authorities. In Ireland, the
30 It should be noted that the initial intention was to include estimates by the Joint Research Centre in Seville of the
impact of 107 major transport projects co-financed by the ERDF across the EU on the regions in which they took
place on the basis of the changes in traffic resulting and the cost savings produced. This was to be done using the
TRANSTOOLS model. However, on carrying out a preliminary analysis, it was concluded that TRANSTOOLS was not at
present set up to undertake such an analysis, that while it could produce estimates of the overall network effects of
transport projects it did not contain sufficient detail to estimate the impact on any particular region.
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