The RailFreight website reports that the European Court of Auditors concluded in a survey that the European Union’s TEN-T network will not be completed by 2030, the deadline which had been set for the European core transport network. What is more, the delays in the construction and putting into operation of these megaprojects put at risk the effective functioning of five out of nine TEN-T corridors, the institution has found.
The megaprojects, also called Transport Flagship Infrastructures (TFIs), are the key missing links for connecting national networks to create seamless European transport corridors. Most of the projects are sound, from a physical economic standpoint, and have therefore been included in studies issued by the Schiller Institute on the World Land-Bridge—with the caveat that they will never be funded or completed under the current EU structure. The latest report confirms that the total estimated cost of the selected TFIs was EU54.0 billion, of which the EU has paid EU3.4 billion to date. In other words, halfway to the deadline only 7% of the funds have been paid.
Another reason why these projects have stalled out is because of local opposition, often a violent one, fueled by neo-flagellants, environmentalists and climate freaks, who constitute the constituency of today’s EU institutions. One outstanding example is the new Turin-Lyon line, which is part of the Paneuropean Corridor 5 and was inserted in the TEN-T plan back in 1994. The environmentalist mob has conducted real warfare against the project, backed by political forces such as Italy’s Five Star Movement and others, and have succeeded in delaying the completion of the work. Most recently a mob of 500 was deployed in two violent attacks in 24 hours in Chiomonte, where the new tunnel is being built on the Italian side.